Category Family

‘Toy Story 4’ Easter Eggs

While Toy Story 4 breaks from series traditions in some ways — there’s no Andy, except in a brief prologue, as he passed on his toys to a little girl named Bonnie at the end of Toy Story 3 — it still maintains many of the hallmarks of the series that introduced the world to Pixar Animation Studios back in 1995. From the very beginning, Pixar loved littering its films with Easter eggs; references both to itself and to other beloved movies. Toy Story 4 might have more of these Easter eggs than any Pixar production to date. (It helps setting a big chunk of your movie in an antiques store; you can hide a lot of shoutouts in all that bric a brac.)

Below are 20 of the coolest Easter eggs we found in Toy Story 4. (There are also a few minor SPOILERS, bu...

Interview: Director Chris Renaud

Even before The Secret Life of Pets opened in theaters, even before it became the fifth-highest-grossing original film in history, director Chris Renaud and the team at Illumination Entertainment were already working on a potential sequel.

“We’d gotten a strong reaction to the teaser for the first movie and we started talking,” Renaud told me during a recent conversation in New York City. “You just want to be prepared. Like, what’s the idea?”

In The Secret Life of Pets 2 the idea was to expand on the first movie’s irresistible hook, the private affairs of man’s best friend (and also cats) when their owners are away. This time, Max (Patton Oswalt, replacing Louis C.K...

Every Disney Live-Action Remake

Early in the live-action remake of Disney’s Aladdin, the lovely Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott) is introduced to a prince from a faraway land who has come to her home, the Middle Eastern kingdom of Agrabah, in the hopes of winning her hand in marriage. Jasmine is less than thrilled to be a prop in a male visitor’s hopes of ruling her land, but she has to put on a brave face to please her father, the kindly Sultan (Navid Negahban).

Played by Billy Magnussen, this prince carries himself with a goofy, foppish air and silly Scandinavian accent; he is essentially a variation of a snotty prince who insults Aladdin in the 1992 animated film. Magnussen has all of five minutes of screen time...

‘The Secret Life of Pets 2

In hindsight, 10 days after my beloved dog suddenly died of cancer might have been the wrong time to watch The Secret Life of Pets 2.

When my dog Kirby was a puppy, he looked a lot like Max, the star of Secret Life 2 voiced by Patton Oswalt. He had adorable floppy ears, a brown spot on his side, and a big wet nose. The day we adopted him — while we were inside signing the paperwork! — our car got towed. So then we were standing on a street corner on the east side of Manhattan with this new, utterly terrified new dog and no way to get home. That was fun.

We picked Kirby at the shelter because he came over to my wife and I when we walked up to his cage, and because when we got some time with him he was so calm and sweet and never barked; he let me pick ...

Illumination Entertainment has revealed the official title for Minions 2, the follow-up to the 2015 prequel to the very popular Despicable Me franchise. The studio has confirmed that the sequel will be called Minions: The Rise of Gru and they’ve also reaffirmed that the animated flick will debut in theaters next summer. So, like it or not, we’ve got some more Minion-centric action coming our way. Plan accordingly.

Per an announcement from Universal and Illumination, Minions 2 will hit theaters on July 3, 2020. That puts it right in the middle of the very coveted Fourth of July weekend, which is generally seen as one of the best weeks of the year for movie studios to drop a major tentpole movie. On that date, it will be competing directly with the upcoming Ryan Reynolds action/comedy Free G...

‘Back to the Future: The Musical’

Great Scott! A Back to the Future musical!

After years of development — we have an article about it from way back in 2014 — Playbill says the musical based on the ’80s classic is finally going to premiere. The show, from Urinetown director John Rando with a score by original BTTF composer Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard, will debut next February at the Manchester Opera House. After several months there, it moves to the West End in London. There’s a very brief teaser video above.

Here’s what Back to the Future co-writer Bob Gale told Playbill about the news:

Bob Zemeckis and I have been trying to get this project off the ground for years, but good things take time and finally, the time is right...