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Disney’s Christopher Robin is set to arrive in theatres August 3, and we have been delighting in every piece of information we can get about it because we are so excited! We recently learned more about the film’s casting, saw the trailer, poster, and film stills, and even interviewed director Marc Forster. Now, Entertainment Weekly and the Summer issue of Disney Twenty-Three Magazine have shed some more light on the film, which we are happy to share with you! Here’s what we know:
The movie will be set in 1949.
Ewan McGregor will play a grown-up Christopher Robin who is married and has a daughter.The film will show us the story of Christopher Robin getting back in touch with his childhood. Said Ewan McGregor to Entertainment Weekly:
“In those older stories, [Christopher Robin] purveys a lot of wisdom through the way he deals with Pooh. Pooh and Eeyore run through a lot of philosophical questions, and Christopher Robin is there to answer them somehow. And I think, largely, he’s just lost any of that childish wisdom and he’s a bit stuck. He’s just very work-minded and doesn’t have any time for play. I suppose that’s what the film is about: finding his relationship with his younger self again.”
On set, the word used to describe the plush animal characters (like Pooh) was “stuffy.”
The actors would act alongside the plushes. In the Summer issue of Disney Twenty-Three Magazine, McGregor said about the denizens of the Hundred Acre Wood: “An amazing amount of time and care went into creating the look of each creature. I know that in the movie they’ll be generated by computer, but they’ll look like these teddy bears that we were working with.”
In fact, plushes weren’t McGregor’s only scene partners for these scenes. McGregor told Disney Twenty-Three Magazine: “[Marc] got a lot of young actors just out of drama school to play all the creatures [on set]. They won’t be the voices used in the final film, but they felt right in their characters. So when I was on set playing these scenes, not only did I have a beautiful Pooh teddy bear to look at, I had good actors to play the scenes with me.”
Christopher Robin’s wife will be played by Hayley Atwell.
Atwell, who you may recognize from the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Peggy Carter, plays Evelyn in Disney’s Christopher Robin. Forster told Disney Twenty-Three Magazine:
“Hayley has the ability to play both sides, comedically and dramatically, and that was very important. I really wanted to find this tone that you laugh and cry at the same time.”
We’re stocking up on tissues already!
This will be a movie for everyone in the family.
“I wanted to make a movie that’s really hopeful,” Forster told Disney Twenty-Three Magazine. “You can laugh, you can cry. You can watch it with your mother, and you can watch it with your children. Everybody from 6 to 90 can enjoy this film.”
When August 3 rolls around, you can bet we will be in theatres laughing and crying along to Disney’s Christopher Robin! See you there.