Disney's 'Gigantic' Adds 'Inside Out' Writer Meg LeFauve As Director

It happened on Frozen and it's happening, now, on Disney's upcoming animated feature Gigantic. Announced yesterday (Monday), Meg LeFauve, who was already writing on Gigantic, was just promoted to Director, joining the original director Nathan Greno, for being recognized as adding key creative direction to the script and development. It will be LeFauve's first directing credit.

Sources say the move is akin to what transpired on Disney’s 2013 hit Frozen, on which Jennifer Lee was promoted from screenwriter to director alongside Chris Buck. (source)

We applaud the recognition of female writing talent and recognizing the potential for the position of director, we hope this shows the long-coming acceptance of women in leadership roles in the "good-old-boys club" of feature animation. There's no doubt LeFauve has the talent and ability. Her credits and track record testify to that. (LeFauve is most recently known for her work on the upcoming Captain Marvel.)

There has been a trend in recent years of Disney adding a second director to their movies during development and production, as seen in Big Hero 6 and Zootopia, as well as Frozen, so it's not without precedence. We're very interested to see what a Greno-LeFauve team looks like in terms of creative output.

Official description: Set in Spain during the Age of Exploration, Gigantic follows a teenage adventure-seeker Jack as he discovers a world of giants hidden within the clouds. Along the way he meets Inma, a 60-foot-tall, 10 year-old girl, and agrees to help her find her way home. But he doesn't account for her super-sized personality. Who knew giants were so down to earth?  

"Jack befriends the female giant Inma, who’s “11 years old, 60 feet tall, fiery, feisty and a lot to control” and treats him like a living doll", Greno said. (D23)

It should also be noted that Kristen Anderson Lopez and Robert Lopez (Frozen) are confirmed as writing the music. Gigantic is currently scheduled for release on November 21, 2018.

Found on Tumblr as a Gigantic/Star Versus the Forces of Evil crossover
(both Disney properties). You can see the character of Inma mirroring Star
very well (by an anonymous Drawfriend) 

Fairy Tale Bonus of the Day:

New Character for Gigantic: The Golden Goose

(reposting, extracted from Tumblr)

If people were not aware, there’s been a new character revealed for Disney’s Gigantic. It’s the Golden Goose. Thing is though, the character hasn’t been finalised. From the concept art by@pbcbstudios (voice of Marshmallow, Mr. Yama), we see that it’s going to join the ranks of Maximus, Sven and Pua of non-speaking Animals. This means to say that there’s going to be some gimmick with this character (Maximus was strategic and engaged in combat despite being a horse and Sven was able to speak through Kristoff). But, there’s some more interesting details that people may not realise…

It nests in human hair: On the concept art, we see that it nests on human hair, and, it has strands of blonde all hair over its body. This elaborates on a lot more than people may presume. For instance, it’s a size indicator of the Golden Goose being regular human size if it rests on giant hair strands. Also, if the hair is blonde, we can assume that the golden goose is associated with Imna. And before you wonder, I don’t think it’s even Imna’s pet, because…

The significance of birds: Linking back with my previous point with the Golden Goose being associated with Imna, another point to stress out is a world building aesthetic of Gigantic. Now, I want you to evaluate this picture (LEFT) very closely and identify anything that particularly stands out in this art…

Still haven’t figured it out yet? Well, birds are insects in the world of Gigantic. This leads to a lot of creative scenarios, for instance, pigeons and seagulls being pests instead of flies and mosquitoes. 

But how is the Golden Goose significant to the plot? We'll have to wait a little longer to find that out.

Disney's "Gigantic" News From D23 Today!

This is just breaking as I'm typing the post and people seem more excited about this news than anything else, including any news about Frozen 2, Moana (although that's a close second and I'll bring you up to date on that shortly), Zootopia, Winnie the Pooh or Once Upon A Time.

What is this, you're wondering? 

This is Disney's long-awaited Jack and the Beanstalk project Giants, now renamed Gigantic,  and news has been announced at the currently-running annual Disney fan expo, D23, in Anaheim California.

The story initially broken by Deadline, here's the gist (emphasis in bold and underlined is mine):

Disney said today at the D23 fan expo in Anaheim that its toon studio’s next project will be Gigantic, a Spain-set take on the Jack And The Beanstalk story.  Nathan Greno, who co-directed 2010’s Tangled, will helm the Disney Animation film with Dorothy McKim (Meet The Robinsons) producing. The film will hit theaters in 2018. 

“We want to make the definitive version of Jack And The Beanstalk,” Greno said onstage at D23. 

(Edit FTNH: Inserting official description below, rather than the paraphrased version) The director said: 

Set in Spain during the Age of Exploration, Disney’s “Gigantic” follows adventure-seeker Jack as he discovers a world of giants hidden within the clouds. He hatches a grand plan with Inma, a 60-foot-tall, 11-year-old girl, and agrees to help her find her way home. But he doesn’t account for her super-sized personality—and who knew giants were so down to earth? 

And it’s not just one Big Person at the top of the beanstalk but an entire world of giants from lots of different cultures, he said. The bad guys are the Storm Giants.

The premise isn't exactly new, though it will be interesting to see a grown-man Jack and giant child pair up. There's been more than one adaptation of the fairy tale that has multiple giants in the clouds. The 'set in Spain' part has sort of been done too, but still, this is the Disney version and soon people will have trouble remembering that. Let me rephrase that: this is the Disney FEATURE-LENGTH version. This will actually be the Disney company's FIFTH adaptation of the English fairy tale, including the animated versions in 19922, and the next in 1947, the Once Upon A Time version (in which Jack was Jaqueline and not-so good-of-heart) and the recent Disney movie version of Into the Woods, directed by Rob Marshall.

Did we mention that the music is being written by the duo who created Frozen's wildly successful soundtrack? They're far enough along in the process that they played (and sang) one of the songs at the D23 presentation - after Jack meets the giant girl Inma. Apparently it was "aw-dorable!" Being that the giant is 11 years old, we shouldn't be treated to any teenage angst songs like the infamous Frozen ballad, but there's a lot of warning about getting tugs on the heartstrings and the need to bring tissues so you never know.

And here's additional tidbits reported from various places.

CinemaBlend:

To add some cultural flare to film, it is actually set in Spain during the Age of Exploration, so expect Jack to be something of a Christopher Columbus of the skies. 
In addition to the officially released news, our own Eric Eisenberg is reporting from D23, and from what info he's gathered there, it sounds like Gigantic will include entire societies of different sorts of giants, including Storm Giants, who will act as the villains of the story, and will be twice as big as the girl Jack makes friends with. The character of Jack will be a grown man, as opposed to the youth that he is often portrayed as, which will be important to the interaction between Jack and Inma as the film will focus on the relationship between the adult, yet small human, and the young, yet huge, giant.

From InsideTheMagic:

As the announcement was made, a giant green beanstalk emerged on the D23 Expo 2015 show floor in the Walt Disney Animation Studios pavilion, surrounded by sound effects of a cow mooing and a giant grumbling. Artwork was (also) shown during the presentation. (Edit FTNH: I've inserted the main pics throughout this post.)

The definitive version, hey? I just can't imagine that, even if they do include the famous "Fee Fi Fo Fum" line. 

Dreamworks did an impressive homage to the fairy tale in their Puss In Boots film, but it wasn't the main image of the movie, so tends to be forgotten (worth a look if you haven't seen it - the whole film was far better in the use of fairy tales than I expected, for many reasons).

Oh and check out the cow in the clip below of the giant beanstalk 'prop' that appeared during the presentation, as well as a good look at the storybook Spanish village as well:

But no matter how this pans out, I'm excited to see this classically boys' fairy tale come into the Disney feature length canon and am curious to see what they do with the tale. More than that, though, I'm curious to see how people then re-discover and discuss Jack and the Beanstalk, which, if you read this blog, you'll know is one of my favorites. (Plus, my son's name  - yes my love of fairy tales had a BIG influence on his name choice - is going to have a whole Disney styling he can call his own! Sort of... Yes I am particularly biased in being excited about Jack and the Beanstalk things and there's no way it's going to be like Jack the Giant Slayer that, um, 'happened' a couple of years ago. At least some of those beanstalk posters were seriously awesome, [especially THIS one] even if the movie was... not.)

OK. I will admit this one thing: this movie is going to come complete with a ton of beanstalk products I am going to NEED (yes NEED I tell you!) and I am starting to save this very minute..! A giant beanstalk, along with a red hood, is one of the universal symbols for all things fairy tale. I don't care that it's been done to death, is well known etc etc. The sight of a giant beanstalk always sends me to a happy place. Expect more greenery in the Once Upon A Blog offices the moment merchandising and dollars collide.

So what do you think about all this? (Beanstalk product awesomeness or not?)