Damon Lindelof Drops Some Tomorrowland Details
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The much-anticipated Tomorrowland, a new science fiction film from director Brad Bird and writer Damon Lindelof, has sparked the imagination of both Disney aficionados and sci-fi genre fans. Although there is stll not much known about the film, Lindelof has revealed that none of the movie Tomorrowland will take place in the actual theme park of Tomorrowland.
In an interview with Grantland, Damon Lindelof talked about this film’s inspiration and how it will fit into Disneyland’s mythology. Over the past decade, Disney has used their thrill rides as the basis for several feature-length films, including Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, and the still-in-the-works 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea from director David Fincher. Although the theme park Tomorrowland doesn’t have a narrative, the movie version will feature aspects of the futuristic setting. Here’s Lindelof:
I’ve always been fascinated by Disneyland and Disney World, and my favorite part of the park was always Tomorrowland. But there’s no story there. Like, if you go into Fantasyland, there’s just story happening all around you everywhere, whether it’s sort of a direct kind of connection to a movie that you know or a fairy tale that you know, and the same with, like, Frontierland, or when you go in the Haunted Mansion. My son, who’s 6, when he went on Pirates of the Caribbean for the first time, Jack Sparrow is a part of that ride. He’s going to see the movies in two years, when he’s old enough, and he’s going to think that the movies were the inspiration for the ride, versus the other way around. I would love to do that for Tomorrowland, you know? I would love to give Tomorrowland a story, because right now, Tomorrowland is kind of being taken over by Star Wars — which is great, but it’s called Tomorrowland.
Lindelof continued to talk about one of the film’s inspirations, namely world-renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. The director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City gave a commencement speech at Rice University in Houston, Texas, about how we no longer have an optimistic view of our future. Lindelof thought there could be a movie within this idea. So perhaps Tomorrowland will inspire young people and get them interested in building a brighter tomorrow. If nothing else, it’d be a welcome break from all the post-apocalyptic stuff.
Tomorrowland will start shooting this August for a December 19, 2014 release date. You can watch the Neil deGrasse Tyson’s aforementioned commencement speech below:
