First Look: Disney’s First Animated Marvel Movie….’Big Hero 6′?

Today Disney announced Big Hero 6, a feature-length animated offering for 2014. Set for release on my mother’s birthday next November, it focuses on a brilliant young engineer named Hiro Hamada and some mechanical compadres in their efforts to save the glittering metropolis of…San Fransokyo?

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At this point, some of you may be wondering when Marvel Entertainment or Pixar will finally make use of the rich catalog of Marvel Comics stories crying out for a second life in animation. Turns out that’s exactly what this is.

Big Hero 6 is Disney’s first animated Marvel feature.

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“Bwuh?” you say? Well, we did too. Apparently this blink-and-you’ll-miss-it super team, a Steven T. Seagle and Duncan Rouleau joint, appeared in the pages of Alpha Flight and Sunfire & Big Hero 6#1 back in the late 90s, with Chris Claremont and Scott Lobdell also contributed to the adventures. It being the 90s.

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That Hiro’s surname has undergone a change and Silver Samurai–a pivotal player in this summer’s The Wolverine over at Fox–was also a key member of the original team, suggests we’re looking at a fairly loose interpretation of the source material.

We don’t have a trailer so much as a tease of he movie’s setting, a vibrant hybrid of Tokyo and San Francisco.

From Walt Disney Animation Studios comes “Big Hero 6,” an action comedy adventure about brilliant robotics prodigy Hiro Hamada, who finds himself in the grips of a criminal plot that threatens to destroy the fast-paced, high-tech city of San Fransokyo. With the help of his closest companion—a robot named Baymax—Hiro joins forces with a reluctant team of first-time crime fighters on a mission to save their city. Inspired by the Marvel comics of the same name, and featuring comic-book style action and all the heart and humor audiences expect from Walt Disney Animation Studios, the CG-animated “Big Hero 6” hits theaters in 3D on November 7, 2014.

No writers or directors have yet been named. Though it will be in 3D, naturally.

Pretty weird, right? Do any of you recall Big Hero 6? Do you recall it fondly?


Comments

  1. Technically Big Hero 6 has been popping up here and there in the past few years. A few weeks a one-shot came out and they were in the End of the Earth side issue from Spiderman. I don’t know much about the team, but this does have me interested what other kinds of properties they could animate if this one does alright. Power Pack!? PET AVENGERS!?

  2. I have no idea what this is, but I guess I’ll check it out just for the WTF factor

  3. My familiarity with the source material (or extreme lack thereof) has zero impact on my excitement for this. Look at that wonderful art! It seems like a fun design remiscent of anime, but also of Legend of Korra.

  4. Sunfire’s a mutant, which probably explains the changes.

  5. This looks really cool. I’ll admit though I find this an odd choice for starting their first animated marvel movie with.

    • I agree…a “Kung Fu in Harlem” feature staring Power-Man and Iron Fist, though? That’s the kind of thing that gets me soooo super excited for this stuff.

      Anyone else feel like the Avengers movie just turned on some EXTREMELY OBVIOUS lightbulbs over at Disney?

      Who doesn’t immediately see Marvel+Pixar=Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup?

  6. I love the idea of big budget animated superhero features. I’ve been loving the direct-to-video ones from DC and at most liking the ones from Marvel, but I really dig the idea of taking cartoon superheroes and putting them on the big screen. Big Hero Six is an unusual place to start, but screw it, I’m in.

  7. YES! A Sunfire-lead movie. I have this one shot and they’ve been hoping up from time to time. I recall liking it a lot at the time. They’ve been brought back once or twice before to try and attract a Japanese (and/or a Manga Audience).

    Curious and exciting.

  8. I want a live action/animated hybrid movie of Slapstick in the mode of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

  9. Wow. That footage is stunningly beautiful. I would see a movie that looks like that in a heartbeat!

  10. in theatres !!!!!???? This will bomb easy ! Still way behind Warner bros and DC i see.

  11. It’d be pretty cool if this is paced a little more like a Miyazaki film, without being too terribly heavy on the superhero trappings. That “San Fransokyo” idea alone might be a big draw. The title seems a little strange though. If they’re working from very obscure source material, it seems like they could pick a title that’s more catchy & descriptive (unless the title is tentative?).

  12. So it came out in the late 90s? Hell, I feel so old. I thought that was a mid 00s creation.