Walt Disney Animation Studios is in early development with Marvel on an animated feature film based on the comic book series Big Hero 6. This one hit the rumor mill and the studio acknowledged that it’s on the drawing boards. Big Hero 6 is one of the lesser known of Marvel’s 4,000+ titles. The characters are Sunfire, Silver Samurai, GoGo Tomago, Honey Lemon, Hiro Takachiho, and Baymax. They were created by the Japanese government to protect the country from all threats. As the project is in preliminary development, it’s too early to speculate about its future prospects or release date, but it’s unlikely that any additional details will be revealed at Comic-Con as some expect.


Not sure how Disney would use Sunfire and Silver Samurai, since they are firmly part of the X-Men group (Sunfire was in the X-men a few times, and Silver Samurai has fought them and Wolverine many times). Wouldn’t Fox have rights on them?
Still, if Pixar gets involved, color me interested.
That’s the original line-up of the team from the 90′s. The most recent vlinje-up, the one the movie is based on, doesn’t involve Sunfire and Silver Samurai.
NERD
He’s a nerd because he knew the answer to someone’s question?
It probably has something to do with what specific rights Fox has. Despite Fox owning the X-Men rights, Wolverine and the X-Men and Hulk vs. Wolverine were not, to my knowledge, Fox properties. Also, Wolverine appeared in a few episodes of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, which I know isn’t Fox.
All I can do is speculate, but maybe Fox’s license doesn’t apply to animation? Or maybe it doesn’t apply to direct-to-video or TV properties?
The only rights that Fox has to any marvel characters are the ones that have been seen on screen already, any further rights to use characters must be arranged through the original holder.
Example…. XMen 1, Fox didnt hold the rights to Nightcrawler untill X2, and usually that only applies to feature film (usually live action OR animated not both except on special occasions like Warner Bro. tight relationship with DC).
Talk about using your D list characters. I expect to see a Black Panther movie. One, it wouldn’t require a huge budget and two, it would provide a minority character (outside of Nick Fury) for Avengers 2. In fact, it would be a BETTER character since they wouldn’t be changing his ethnicity from the comic for purely PC purposes and the Black Panther has a cool back story, plus was actually a member of the Avengers in the past (as was the Falcon, but the Black Panther would be a much cooler addition). I hope they don’t go all Batman & Robin and try to put the lame Falcon in the next Captain America movie.
The Avengers movie franchise and its tie ins are more closely based on the Marvel Ultimate line of comics. In that universe Nick Fury is a black man. It wasn’t a PC decision.
Obligatory “you know Nick Fury has been black/based on Jackson in the Ultimate universe for over a decade, right?” post.
This doesn’t do anything to damage the chances of a Black Panther movie. Animation is a completely different division from live-action. Disney could announce fifty different animated projects and not one of them would cause any setbacks for their planned live-action features.
Stick to the classic characters, guys.
yeah, we just want to see the same heroes over and over, nothing new please!
RRAAAWRRRR!!! Hulk hate new things!! Hulk smash!!
They are. For live-action. But what’s the point of doing all classics in both live-action AND animation? Marvel has an incredible large and incredibly diverse library of characters. Do you only want to see Avengers-related movies and Avengers-related cartoons? Because to me, that would seem a bit of a waste.
Also, FYI, the character responsible for launching the comic book movie boom was hardly a classic character. In fact, any time they gave him a solo series, the most issues it would get to was barely breaking into double digits.
That character was Blade. And that obscure character who couldn’t carry his own comic book series, carried three films, one season of a live-action cable TV series, and an animated mini-series.
Just because a character doesn’t have Spider-Man’s level of popularity doesn’t mean they’re bad.
Before the first Iron Man was released you had plenty of people saying that all viable hero characters from Marvel had already been tapped for the screen, yet somehow the properties that the other studios considered the “leftovers” and too problematic to translate ended up being the biggest superhero franchise yet in The Avengers.
It doesn’t matter how obscure the characters are if there’s a good concept for a film there. They don’t have to license the rights from Marvel, so why not use Marvel characters, even if they’re obscure, instead of creating some from scratch?
Exactly. The fact that these characters are so obscure convinces me this is a project someone is actually passionate about and has a good story in mind for, rather than just being a project Disney’s churning out to stretch the Marvel brand.
marvel has always excelled at live-action movies, while DC has (with the exception of the nolan batman films) done wonders with their animated films. hopefully this one turns out better than the other marvel animated stuff.
And it’s being directed by one of the guys who directed the awful flop Winnie the Pooh.
91% on Rotten Tomatoes. Awful who? It just flopped because of lack of promotion. But it’s not
Awful
Anyway, hopefully the movie would be good. Frozen and Wreck-it Ralph seems promising. Disney hopefully would continue their resurging quality films.
Jesus Christ, Disney’s animating Marvel heroes? That’s like Michelangelo painting on a turd. How the Kingdom has fallen…
You do realize Disney owns Marvel and Disney made the Avengers, right? Look how that “turd” came out. 3rd highest grossing movie of all time.
@Swipsy Over the last fifteen years, that “turd” has generated blockbuster after blockbuster, with–what?–four exceptions: Daredevil, Elektra, Ghost Rider, and the Punisher reboot. That’s not to mention being the top comics publisher of ALL TIME.
But no, you’re right, they should probably return to the glory of Brother Bear, The Jungle Book 8, and The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars. I suppose you’d like to see Disney do a version of The Iliad called “Achilles” where the protagonist is a nice, noble, pale blonde Prince Charming, his sidekick Patroclus is a cowardly puppy, Hera’s voice is done by Whoopi Goldberg, and all the shields, spears, and chariots have eyes and sing bouncy show tunes?
Ousting Eisner and purchasing Marvel rights are probably the most visionary moves they’ve made since teaming up with Pixar. Thank goodness the keys to “the Kingdom” aren’t in your hands!
Plus, they’re fucking killer awesome.