Folks, Harry here... Those of you with an eye for the finer articles printed here on AICN, well... there is no doubt that you'll remember the wondrous work of one... MOOCOW... Well, the man behind the herd has decided to step out from behind his mask and say, "Dammit, I'm Jim Hill and I liked what I saw of COUNTRY BEAR... WHAT??? Well, it is true... and upon reading this letter... as well as his wonderful piece linked below... Well... I'm eager to see COUNTRY BEAR. However, in Jim's other article he mentions the development slate at Disney regarding their theme park attractions and something hit me... EISNER!!! Eisner, contact Guillermo Del Toro's agent and enter into talks with him about THE HAUNTED MANSION. One of Guillermo and mine's favorite things on the planet is Disney's HAUNTED MANSION... and I just know that Guillermo would dedicate a love and an eerie sense of fun to a HAUNTED MANSION flick that would just be the coolest thing since LONESOME GHOSTS! I want to see a Guillermo Del Toro HAUNTED MANSION movie.... And I wanna see Walken doing the 1812 Overture from his Armpits too... Here ya go....
Hey, Harry !
Jim Hill here (AKA Moocow). Again, sorry to have dropped off the map
for so long there. But I had a falling out with the folks over at
MousePlanet a while back, so it's taken me some time to find a new spot
on the Web where I could regularly dish the dirt on Disney.
Long story short here: I've now hooked up with the crew at
Amusementpark.com, where I've just posted a story that I think you and
the rest of the Aint-It-Cool-News crew might enjoy reading. It's a full
production report on that most unlikely sounding of projects, Disney's
"Country Bears" movie.
I know, I know, Harry. How can a film that features scary & strange
Christopher Walken (And -- if you thought Walken was weird when he
appeared this past weekend on "Saturday Night Live" season finale --
wait 'til you see Chris next year on the big screen, standing on the
stage of Country Bear Hall playing the "1812 Overture" on his armpits)
as well as costumes by the folks who made the Muppets possibly be any
good? Is America truly ready for a film that's based on a theme park
attraction?
Well ... After personally watching the "Country Bears" production
team shoot the film's finale (Over three long, dull nights out at
Disney's Golden Oaks Ranch in Newhall, CA. earlier this month), the
answer is ... Maybe. The key element of the film -- the bears themselves
-- look absolutely great, Harry. Henson's people have truly outdone
themselves on this project. The radio controlled suits (Which feature
one performer actually inside the costume as well as three off-stage
puppeteers working the suit's animatronic facial controls) made the main
bears -- Henry, Big Al, Ted, Fred, Zeb, Tennessee, Trixie & Beary --
really come across as living, breathing performers.
Of course, what probably helped is that Disney gave Henson's team a
full month to rehearse with the suits before frame one of film was shot.
That extra time did really seem to pay off, though, Knowles. As I stood
watching the Country Bears performers on stage jamming to the
pre-recorded soundtrack over those three nights, I couldn't help but
think: Damn, these bears look good. There they are, up there on stage,
acting like a real country rock band does. Wandering all over the place.
Riffing with each other. Playing to the crowd down front. (Of course, it
didn't hurt that the film's finale is built around this new John Hiatt
song, "Straight to the Heart of Love," that is actually not bad. What do
you want to bet that -- once the soundtrack comes out next year -- the
Mouse uses all of its media might to get this particular tune maximum
exposure on both the country & pop charts?)
Anyway ... Strange as it may seem, Harry, Mickey might actually pull
this project off. Of course, what probably helps is -- at least this
time around -- the Mouse (Which has become notoriously stingy these
days. Just ask Michael Bay about the epic battles he had with Disney
execs over "Pearl Harbor" 's production budget.) actually decided to
spend a few bucks on the film. I mean, they built this truly beautiful
full-sized replica of Country Bear Hall out there in Placerita Canyon.
Plus they laid out some huge cash to build those bear suits. How
much? Well ... Let's put it this way, Knowles: The background bears --
five atmosphere performers who sat toward the back of the audience and
reacted to the concert at the end of the film, just like the rest of the
extras -- each wore 100 pound horse-hair-covered suits that supposedly
cost $35,000 apiece. And all the performers in those bear suits could do
was blink their eyes and move their mouths a little.
The on-stage bear suits -- with their fully-articulated animatronic
heads -- supposedly cost at least 10 times more than that amount each to
build. But -- then again -- that money seemed to be well spent, because
those bears really came across as eerily life-like performers.
You know the moment that really sold me on the whole "Country Bears"
thing? It's my last night on the set. They're trying to film Henry's
intro for the band. But there's some technical problem, so the cameras
were off while the crew tries to sort out things out.
So the guy who wears the Henry (the M.C. bear) suit is patiently
standing on stage, waiting for this glitch to be cleared up ... when he
notices that one of the extras in the second row has fallen asleep (Hey,
it was 2 a.m. after a long night of shooting. So it's not like I blame
the guy. Anyway ... ). So -- while still in character, still in costume
-- Henry the bear now begins to rag on this poor slob.
"Hey, Sleeping Beauty. Wakey Wakey. Get that man a double latte!"
The guy in the Henry suit did about two minutes of bad stand-up, riffing
on the sleepy extra. Which was -- all by itself -- pretty funny. But
when you consider that -- in order to pull off this totally
off-the-cuff, improvised harangue -- four different performers (the guy
on stage in the Henry suit, plus the three puppeteers off-stage working
his facial controls) had to be working in perfect harmony ... That's
when it got scary. And/or magical.
You can decide for yourself which it is, Harry, when the "Country
Bear" film hits theaters in 2002. And -- if you want to learn more about
the project (I.E. Which Dreamworks exec tried to get Disney into the
theme-park-attractions-into-movies game back in the mid-1990s, which WB
favorite ended up reworking this film's script as well as which other
Disneyland & Walt Disney World favorites are currently being targeted
for big screen treatment, etc. ) -- check out the full production report
that I've posted over at AmusementPark.com by following this link.
That's it from here, Harry. I hope you had fun on the beach over at
Cannes. I'll try and drop you a line again soon. (Given all the awful
things that are currently going on behind the scenes at Disney Feature
Animation these days, believe me, there are plenty of horror stories
that have yet to be told.)
Best Regards,
Jim Hill
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