Marc Forster with Eeyore, Piglet and Tigger on the set of Disney’s CHRISTOPHER ROBIN.
How did it start? I was familiar with Marc Forster’s work as he directed one of my favorite movies, World War Z! But at some point his young daughter turned to him at a later date and asked when would he direct a movie that she could see:
“I was in a plane with my daughter and we were flying to a vacation and she’s watching an iPad, a Pooh cartoon and she said, she suddenly turned to me and said, hey, can’t you make a movie for kids once? And said all your movies are like, dark and for grownups and [LAUGHS] said I can’t watch any of them. She was six at the time and I said, yeah, why don’t we do Pooh, I said jokingly. And then ultimately, I started, I came back and you know, all the stars aligned.”
Marc Forster and was known for his wide range of films—including “Finding Neverland,” “Quantum of Solace” and “The Kite Runner”—and grew up loving Disney live-action films and was immediately drawn to the story. It had a sense of magic realism, and he believed it had the potential to become an artistic, emotional, funny and timeless film. In the original Winnie the Pooh universe, Christopher Robin goes off to boarding school. This movie picks up in post WW2 England, and Christopher Robin is a grown man, trying hard to support his family, with growing pressures to produce more at work.
Marc had worked with Ewan over 10 years earlier and they had stayed in touch. Marc thought Ewan would be good for the role, he wanted someone:
“he’s so good, but the one thing is there’s something about him, he’s so likeable and so lovely, you want to just connect with him and you want him, that his heart opens again and he becomes playful and he reconnects with his family. And so you really root for him and it was really crucial to have an actor who has that sort of likeability because otherwise, you suddenly don’t connect with him or don’t want to root for him.”
Christopher Robin has grown into a loving husband and father and a hard-working employee at Winslow Luggage, but the burdens that come with adulthood have caused him to forget the good times of his youth and he has lost sight of the person he once was. There are immense pressures at work and he is forgetting his happier days. The attention to historical detail was also important, and the early 1950’s was a time when paid vacation started becoming mainstream, so this Winslow Luggage career fit in perfectly with the story that needed to be told.
Marc spoke to us about the technical issues that I have discussed in earlier posts, how the actors first started acting with stuffed animals voiced by aspiring yourng acting students, and then eventually had to act looking at clay figures in order for the animation to work, something I never tire of hearing as we got the actors/actresses preceptions of that experience, and now the director’s!
We also asked about the location:
Marc Forster on the set of Disney’s live-action adventure CHRISTOPHER ROBIN.
“we shot lots in Ashtown Forrest. Literally next to where Milne’s estate is and where the real woods forest was, which he was surrounded by, so that forest is probably like ten miles down the road where we shot, and the little river where we built our Pooh bridge is connected to the same river that the real Pooh bridge is, so it’s all the same woods and neighborhood.”
Winnie the Pooh in Disney’s live-action adventure CHRISTOPHER ROBIN.
It was meant to be!
Marc also shared about the positive message that is the takeaway from the movie, something that all the actors also shared, and is the general spirit of the movie:
“When you are able to make people laugh and cry in the same movie and you are able to tell the story with integrity and ground it in reality and have the magic realism on top of it, it lifts your spirits and connects you with the people you love,” says Forster. And this is a story Forster believes has never been more relevant. “I think it’s something we desperately need in the world,” he says. “We could all use a little bit of Pooh’s heart and wisdom right now.”
And then there’s the Easter Egg, which is where this picture comes from:
The credits are rolling, but don’t leave the theater. This is where Richard Sherman, famous Disney song writer, is playing the piano and singing on the beach. Marc had the idea for this scene, but no money, so he grabbed all the extras and one camera and they ran to the beach, did the shot, and magic was made, this is when I finally started to tear up:
“So I felt suddenly it would be great to show them all on a beach and we didn’t have it in the schedule and it wasn’t really budgeted and I said to the line producer, you know what? It was right where we shot the train station set when he’s running through the train station. Next to the train station was the beach. It was in Dover, so I said to line producer, you know, I’m just going over to the beach. We have so many extras here. Just stick them in bathing suits, run over, I’m taking a camera. Just shoot it. [LAUGHS] And he said, it’s not, no, no, no. Just, let’s, I can do this in two hours. So we’re running over there and I suddenly said now we need the piano on the beach as well. All came spontaneous to me to put the four chairs next to the guys and put the animals in there and then ultimately, that all came together literally within five minutes. Like, put the four chairs and then we did one take of that.”
Magic. Brilliance. It brings the entire movie to a conclusion that times are changing, we need to include hope and joy in our lives!
dont normally go to moves like this,but it looks like its fun,so maybe…