Walden Media Fans

Walden Media and Paramount’s 2006 live-action version of Charlotte’s Web is getting the high-definition treatment this March, with a release on Blu-ray Disc.  The release date is March 29th.

The movie stars Dakota Fanning, Julia Roberts, and Oprah Winfrey and was nominated for three Critics’ Choice Awards, winning Best Family Film (Live Action).

Specs have yet to be revealed, but supplements will include: Commentary with Director Gary Winick; Commentary with Producer Jordan Kerner and visual effects supervisor John Andrew Berton Jr.; Making Some Movie; Some Voices; Flacka’s Pig Tales; How Do They Do That?; What Makes a Classic; Where Are They Now?; A Day at the Fair!; Farm Photo Album; Music Videos (Sarah McLachlan, “Ordinary Miracle” and Bob Carlisle and Lucy Kane, “Make a Wish”); Gag Reel; and Additional Scenes.

-via High Def Digest

Over the past couple of years, I introduced my now wife to an old set of movies that I watched a bit as a child.  Joe Camp’s Benji.  She wound up digging a bit deeper into the world of Joe Camp, and found that he was planning a team up movie with Benji and a horse that he had.  Unfortunately, that horse died unexpectedly and the project seemed to fall apart.  She continues to read Joe Camp’s blog regularly, though, because of her love of horses and dogs.

However, yesterday I got to tell her that Walden Media was planning to bring Benji back.  That was all she needed to know to be sold on it.  The funny thing is, when we were watching it, and I was thinking that it would be great if it was rebooted for today’s audiences.  The first film seemed very dated, definitely not aging well.

Walden Media and Fox have hired Brandon Camp, son of “Benji” creator Joe Camp Jr., to write, direct and produce a film that will reboot the character for a new crop of young moviegoers.

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Filming has begun on location in Oahu, Hawaii, for the 3D family adventure “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island,” directed by Brad Peyton (“Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore“).

Josh Hutcherson will reprise his role as young adventurer Sean Anderson in this exciting follow-up to the 2008 worldwide hit “Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D,” the first live-action film ever to be shot in digital 3D. Dwayne Johnson stars as Sean’s stepfather, Hank Parsons; Michael Caine as Sean’s grandfather, Alexander Anderson; Vanessa Hudgens and Luis Guzman as a father-daughter tour guide team; and Kristin Davis as Sean’s mom, Liz Anderson.

The new journey begins when Sean receives a coded distress signal from a mysterious island where no island should exist — a place of strange life forms, mountains of gold, deadly volcanoes, and more than one astonishing secret. Unable to stop him from going, Sean’s new stepfather joins the quest. Together with a helicopter pilot and his beautiful, strong-willed daughter, they set out to find the island, rescue its lone inhabitant and escape before seismic shockwaves force the island under the sea and bury its treasures forever.

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When I was very young, my little sister recorded a film version of this story that was on TV.  She loved it, although my taste in film was changing toward much more high quality films.  News that Walden Media is going to be producing a new version of the book for the big screen is a blessing to me, as I think the story is good enough – the editing and pacing just needed to be tighter and faster at times.  Jokes would land in the other version, and then get dragged out, but Walden Media’s films don’t dwell on one thing for too long.

Deadline Hollywood is reporting that Twentieth Century Fox and Walden Media have managed to obtain the elusive rights to the most widely syndicated comic strip in the world: The Family Circus, and have plans to bring it to the big screen in live action!

Here’s the story about how it happened, from Deadline Hollywood:

20th Century Fox has teamed with Walden Media to buy rights to Bil Keane’s venerable syndicated comic strip The Family Circus, and they’ve hired Bob Hilgenberg & Rob Muir to script a live action feature. John Baldecchi and Stacy Maes are producing. Bil Keane started the strip in 1960 and continues to generate the single-panel script with his son Jeff. It is the most widely syndicated strip in the world, according to King Features.

A number of studios competed for the rights for what is envisioned as a multiple quadrant family franchise. Though several members of the Keane clan have become film animators, Bil Keane resisted making a film deal all these years. Producer Baldecchi spent two years trying to track them down. He got Keane’s number, but never had his messages returned. One day, Baldecchi called and Keane picked up the phone. He made enough of an impression that Keane introduced the producer to his son Jeff. Soon they had an agreement to move forward and then studios got involved.

I’m told the deal was six figures against seven-figures and went to Fox and Walden, which are partnered in the upcoming The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Timed to the release of the highly-acclaimed documentary WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN,” Participant Media’s online hub of the official Social Action campaign – waitingforsuperman.com/action – offers the resources and tools moviegoers need to become involved in the issue of improving public education in the U.S. The film, a Paramount Vantage and Participant Media presentation in association with Walden Media, opens in theaters in New York and Los Angeles today, expanding throughout the nation during October. The site provides actions that allow people who are inspired by the film to engage at whatever level they’re comfortable, from simply getting information about the graduation rates for their child’s high school to opportunities to become deeply involved in their community through volunteering, donating and mentoring to advocating for policy changes.

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Michael Caine has become one of my favorite actors to watch on screen.  From his role as Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol to Alfred in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, he has the acting chops to give weight to just about any role that he plays.  Now he has joined Dwayne Johnson and Josh Hutcherson for the sequel to Journey to the Center of the Earth.  It’s too bad that Brendan Fraser dropped out of the movie, as it would have been great to see him acting with Michael Caine.

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Having unveiled its first list this past spring, HarperCollins’s Walden Pond Press imprint is making a push into Wimpy Kid territory with the acquisition of four books in a heavily illustrated middle-grade series from author/illustrator Jarrett J. Krosoczka. Scheduled to launch in summer 2012, Platypus Police Squad riffs on classic legal dramas and police procedurals—with animals in the starring roles. “We pitched the book as Frog and Toad meets Law and Order,” said Krosoczka. “It’s definitely inspired by the classic buddy cop movies from the ’80s and the hour-long dramas on TV.”
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