A Mighty Impressive Group Of Folks Are Helping Tweak TRON LEGACY...

Merrick here...
Last week, via Empire magazine, we learned that director Joe Kosinski showed David Fincher a cut of TRON LEGACY and subsequently received notes on the project (Kosinski used to shoot commercials for Fincher, hence their association). Now comes word that Fincher's notes weren't the only set of feedback solicited for the film.

EW.com has learned that the CG-extravaganza due out at the end of the year received some key input from some very brilliant filmmakers, mainly the elite brain trust at Pixar in Northern California. In late March, the Tron filmmakers chose to show a very early working cut of the film starring Garrett Hedlund and Jeff Bridges to Pixar’s John Lasseter, Ed Catmull, The Incredibles director Brad Bird, Toy Story 3 screenwriter Michael Arndt, and others. The one-day exercise was done in advance of some planned re-shoots scheduled for June with the intent of beefing up the very things that Pixar is so good at: character, emotion, and theme.

...says Entertainment Weekly HERE. The article goes on to indicate that Brad Bird and Michael Arndt were subsequently brought in to write-up some script pages that were filmed over six days of planned reshoots in June. Does this mean anything bad for the film? Not necessarily. Filmmakers showing their work to other filmmakers in the hopes of obtaining useful feedback is hardly a new phenomenon (Lucas/Spielberg/Milius, Abrams/Kevin Smith being examples) - this doesn't automatically denote gloom and doom in any way, shape, or form. This said, I still think it's pretty admirable that any ego involved with any picture is comfortable enough with his or her abilities to allow/seek the input of other creative forces in this way. And, my God, look at the talent that's coming to the table in this instance. Above all, it's pretty incredible that a "the quality of the film comes first" approach is being exercised for a high-profile, corporate machine like TRON LEGACY. In TL's case, it would have been astonishingly simple for Disney and Kosinski to simply drop kick the project into theaters as-is...and remain content to sell it based on name recognition and already buzz-igniting trailers. Instead, they're going the extra mile here and trying to nail it completely. Commendable, and more power to 'em. The EW piece suggests this kind of dialog (Disney--->Pixar--->DreamWorks and varying combos therein) may become increasingly common given the increased symmetry between those companies - which could result for a pretty formidable think tank, all things considered. It'll be very interesting to see where all of this goes.
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