Dwayne Johnson To Battle Theme-Park Obsolescence Gnomes in 'Tomorrowland' MovieApparently looking to expand the modest scope that exploited its Pirates of the Caribbean attraction as a nearly eight-hour, $3 billion-grossing trilogy, Disney now plans to mine an entire portion of Disneyland for the franchise of the future. Literally: The studio has reportedly commissioned a pair of writers to develop the script for a film based on Tomorrowland, with Dwayne Johnson attached to star as a minimum-wage ride operator whose fantasies of updating Star Tours lead to a thrilling adventure through the Lucas/Disney black hole of bureaucracy. Or... something. If Disney knows, its overlords aren't talking:
The film is being designed as a vehicle for Johnson, who starred for the studio in family hit The Game Plan and most recently completed Race to Witch Mountain. Disney denies the film has been titled Tomorrowland or is dedicated to the park's section, a futuristic area of the Magic Kingdom that includes such attractions as Space Mountain. The studio called the nascent project an original script.
Translation: A Rock film is cheaper and faster than updating that entire outdated section of the park. And while we can't necessarily blame Disney's frugality, the purists in us hope Tomorrowland: The Movie preserves the singular experience of waiting two hours among camera-slinging tourists for the privilege of space flight — assuming the spacecraft is not out of service on our chosen day of travel. It's not called the Happiest Place on Earth for nothing, after all.