Big Hero 6

Like a lot of geeks, I feel that animation and superheroes are a medium and a genre made for each other.  Who needs to worry about fancy special effects?  Just draw it.  No more nerd rage over who the perfect actor is.  Just draw the perfect guy.  It's just so easy.

So, of course, when Disney bought Marvel back in 2009, people came up with wish lists a mile long as to what Marvel heroes would best be given the Disney animated treatment.  And, earlier this week, Disney made the announcement as to which Marvel hero is coming to the big screen in animation first.  And that is...

Big Hero 6.

Big Hero 6 follows the adventures of Japan's first group of state-sanctioned superheroes.  It's the Alpha Flight of Japan.  However, the film will mainly focus on one member of the group, Hiro Hamada, a robotics prodigy, and his prize creation Baymax, a humanoid robot who can transform into a giant dragon.  And the film will follow the adventures of Hiro as he goes out to recruit the heroes and save the day.

Disney is already saying it's "inspired by" the original comic, so that means there's going to be lots of deviations from the source material.  The man behind it is Disney animator Don Hall, who co-directed Disney's last attempt at traditional 2D animation, Winnie the Pooh.  No word yet on who's doing voices or any of that, but Disney's already hard at work on it.

Earlier this week, they released concept of art of "San Fransokyo," the San Fransisco/Tokyo mash-up that serves as our film's setting.

And they also released this test footage of a San Fransokyo flyover.





I'm interested in this.  As I said, I love superheroes in animation, and the fact that Disney is finally being turned loose on the Marvel library is intriguing.  But still, it's very early.  Who knows what can happen?

Big Hero 6 is scheduled to come out November 2014.