There has been a ton of speculation about Damon Lindelof and Brad Bird's sci-fi collaboration "Tomorrowland" (named after a Disney theme world), formerly titled "1952." Plot comparisons to Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters" had fans extremely excited, and then a fascinating article from entertainment journalist and Disney expert Jim Hill popped up that took the mysterious project in a slightly different direction.
Hill claimed the film, inspired by a box of Disney World memorabilia circa 1952, would be based on an unproduced television series that the U.S. government approached Walt with. The show would reveal to American audiences that those alien buggers they had been hearing about all over the news were real. A scoop on website HitFix, however, suggests yet another possibility — one that could be even stranger than the "UFOs are real" plotline. A leaked synopsis being used by a Hollywood agency to cast the 2014 film reads as follows:
"A teenage girl, a genius middle-aged man (who was kicked out of Tomorrowland) and a pre-pubescent girl robot attempt to get to and unravel what happened to Tomorrowland, which exists in an alternative dimension, in order to save Earth."
George Clooney, who joined the project last year, will play the banished Frank Walker who wants to join the nefarious David Nix (to be played by Hugh Laurie) in his Tomorrowland world. Sadly, the young inventor's gadgets don't impress Nix when the two meet at the 1964 World's Fair. A young girl befriends Walker when she sees him being rejected and sneaks him into Tomorrowland.
Inter-dimensional travel bodes well for Walker, who then falls in love with a young girl named Athena. She's actually an android. Nix discovers the undercover Walker, boots him out (along with every other "creative thinker" in his world), and Tomorrowland becomes a corrupt place for Nix's personal gain.
Later, a now middle-aged Walker teams up with a heroic, scientific young woman named Casey and his former robot ladylove to dethrone Nix and restore peace. HitFix concludes: "There's interdimensional travel, human-looking robots, and a quest for revenge on the part of Frank. He is a bitter adult, and the film is not just about Casey's adventure, but also about Frank rediscovering the kid he used to be. It sounds like young Frank actually plays a decent-sized role in the film, so we may see both timelines play out to some extent."
Whew. After you've digested all this, it's worth heading over to HitFix for more details. What's incredible is this was all apparently inspired by that box we mentioned, which contained archival photos of Walt Disney, mysterious envelopes, a 1928 copy of "Amazing Stories" (which features Philip Francis Nowlan's Buck Rogers character for the first time), a strange metal object, and other curious goodies.
While this is just a rumor for now, who can you see playing the eternally young android and quick-witted Casey? We can't see the studio casting a pre-teen actress, because it would seem pretty creepy where the love interest storyline is concerned. Someone like Dakota Fanning, who played another otherworldly creature in the "Twilight" films, still looks young enough to pull it off. Ellen Page has our vote for Casey, with thoughts of her savvy architecture student, Ariadne, from Christopher Nolan's "Inception" on our minds. Could Chloë Grace Moretz also be a great Casey contender?
Play casting director along with us in the comments below and on Twitter!
