Disney Updates: Beauty And The Beast 3D Pushed; New Date For Monsters, Inc. 2; King Of The Elves Being Reworked

There are a few Disney project updates today. First up, the release of Monsters Inc. 2 has been pulled up by two weeks to avoid competition with the final film in the Twilight series. The new date for the Pixar sequel is November 2, 2012. That'll give it two weeks before Twilight opens, but Pixar should be able to hold its own after having a couple weeks to establish a beachhead.

After the break, slightly meatier updates on Beauty and the Beast 3D and King of the Elves.

THR reports that Beauty and the Beast 3D has been pushed off the 2011 calendar, and into the murky waters of "2012 or later." The trade's take is that this isn't a problem with the film or the conversion, but rather the profit potential. Re-releases have a low ceiling for theatrical profit; Disney believes it will really make money on the 3D version of the film by getting it into homes with 3D TV capability. But wide use of that tech is a ways off, so the studio is holding the release until it has a bigger potential home audience.

Meanwhile, a dreary old-fashioned 2D special edition DVD of Beauty and the Beast will still be released in October.

Finally, there's word on King of the Elves, an adaptation of a Philip K. Dick short story that was originally to be directed by Aaron Blaise and Robert Walker. The project has been in a state of flux over the last year, leading to uncertainty about whether it might or might not get made. Bleeding Cool found an update on Blue Sky Disney, which says,

Well, now they have that better take, and the version that will be going forward is much different thanks to [Bolt director] Chris Williams' new direction on the project. That's right, Williams is the new director of KOTE, and it is moving forward in development. While it hasn't received approval to go into production, Williams is one of John's "first finds" at WDAS and he likes what he sees in the young animator/director. Since he came aboard, the story flow has become much smoother than the previous try.

So it seems that Chris Williams is now directing, but there's another question: will the film be CGI or hand-animated? That's a point that remains unclear. If you want to whet your appetite for the film, check out the concept art available at the Animatie Blog, such as the image below.