Disney’s second D23 Expo took place in Anaheim over the weekend, and I’m sad I missed it because I love self-congratulatory industry circle jerks run by the marketing department (especially when they serve sliders!). Luckily, there’s this thing called the internet where the people who did go can SHARE THE NEWS FOR ALL! What an incredible time it is to be alive. Here’s your rundown:

Hot on the heels of the set pictures that hit over the weekend, The Avengers cast was on hand for a sneak peek. One thing is certain: Chris Hemsworth is still tall and handsome with piercing blue eyes and oh god can’t stop imagining what he smells like. So… do these people actually get to film a movie between attending conventions? |Hitfix|

Up co-director Pete Docter is set to direct “The Untitled Pixar Movie That Takes You Inside The Mind.” ThePlaylist reports taht Little Miss Sunshine/Toy Story 3 writer Michael Arnt is writing the script. I’m expecting Inception with less (*braaaahm*)s, and more talking dogs. |/Film|

Up‘s OTHER co-director, Bob Peterson (who also voiced Dug the Dog), will direct a film that takes place in a modern world where dinosaurs never went extinct. It’d be cool if the dinosaurs stomped around wrecking sh*t, but knowing Pixar, they’ll probably just be super cute. |USAToday|

John C. Reilly to voice “Wreck-It Ralph”, a CG-animated feature about an 8-bit arcade game villain desperate to change his image who invades other arcade games trying to become a hero. John C. Reilly is pretty much the best, and if you disagree I’m duty bound to fight you. I also have my fingers crossed for a Billy Mitchell cameo. His hot sauce tastes like America. |CinemaBlend|

Details about Brave, Pixar’s next release, which is still almost a year away. It’s definitely about a “tough girl badass”, but hopefully Pixar will do a better job with it than Salt, Hanna, Colombiana, Haywire, and the other six thousand movies with that same plot. |/Film|

Footage screened from Frankenweenie, Tim Burton’s stop-motion, 3D-animated, black-and-white film about a zombie dog. I love dogs, but I think wiener dogs are my least favorite. Is that racist? Discuss. |ComingSoon|

I’ve mentioned the planned adaptation of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (by Pride and Prejudice and Zombies author Seth Grahame-Smith) a few times now, but today’s news is that Fox has “won” a bidding war for the project.  It will be in 3D (duh) with Wanted‘s Timur Bekmambetov directing, Tim Burton producing, and a $69 million budget.  Grahame-Smith will write the script.  So, how did Fox manage to secure this surefire hit?  By colossal tools, apparently.

Fox went all out to win rights to the project, giving a detailed pitch for the film’s production, marketing, and release.  Studio higher-ups didn’t stop there.  When the filmmakers entered the Fox lot, they were greeted by a huge banner, plus parking signs stating, “Parking for Vampire Hunters Only, Park at your own risk.”

A banner and fake, personalized street signs?  Well la di dah.  Suddenly my birthday trip to the county fair when I was six doesn’t seem so hot.

Next there were bloody footprints lining the walkway and steps leading from their cars to the meeting with Fox execs.  Posters lining the hallway of the executive building showed images from the book and lines from the script, while there were silver bullets in a bowl at the check-in desk.

“I see you’ve read enough of my book to make photocopies, yet not enough to know that silver bullets kill werewolves, not vampires.  Very impressive.”

The showmanship continued.  Bloody axes were strewn about and a bugle player with a Confederate uniform played “Taps.”  [Variety]

And as they were about to leave, Fox presented the filmmakers with a scrapbook of their meeting, featuring a polaroid-filled photo album with “Best Friends Forever!” written on the cover in puffy paint.  Christ, this whole article gives me major douche chills. But let’s take a step back.  What exactly did Fox secure the rights to again?

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"Move along, fella. This is Jet territory." (*finger snaps*)

God knows why we’re only hearing about it now, but it turns out Johnny Depp has long been Tim Burton’s muse, and I’m not speaking solely of cinema.  Yes, I’m talking about poetry, theatre’s even gayer cousin. (*dims lights, rolls cigarette*)  Turns out Burton wrote a poem about Depp which was published in Double Exposure, Take Three, by Roddy McDowell in 1992.  Of course I own it.  I keep it on my bookshelf next to some albums by bands you’ve never heard of on vinyl.  And it goes… (*finger snaps*) a little something… (*adjusts scarf*) like this… (*throws chalk in the air like Lebron James*)

(imagine Michael Madsen lighting a cigarette and Terrence Howard playing the bongos for ambience)

there was a young man
everyone thought was quite handsome
so he tied up his face
and held it for ransom

he made everybody
back up 20 feet
then he ran off
with his head
down a darkly
lit street

the whole town
wondered why he’d
threatened his face

they couldn’t understand,
…it was that kind of place.

Cool story, Tim Burton.

…To be honest, I was hoping it’d be a lot more hipstery.  I like how it rhymed.  And not one word about corsets or super-pale skin.  (*kicks can*)

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"We're theriouth artithtth."

After a long, critically-acclaimed (probably overrated) career, Tim Burton may have recently found an even smashier way to destroy his legacy than the dance scene at the end of Alice in Wonderland.  Over the weekend, /Film talked to producer Roy Lee, who’s producing a film adaptation of the Monsterpocalypse board game for Dreamworks. If Lee is to be believed (and Hollywood producers never lie, remember that, ladies), Burton is close to signing on as director.  Here’s what Lee told /Film:

• John August is writing the screenplay right now, consulting with the game’s creator Matt Wilson (who is also a co-producer)
• Tim Burton is developing the project to direct
• Being developed as a 3D movie
• It could hit theaters by the end of 2012
• Will not feature other properties like Voltron
• The plot involves giant monsters who attack earth. After the humans fight back, the monsters retreat, but it is quickly discovered that they didn’t leave, but instead burrowed underground and are sending some sort of signal into space. The humans prepare for a possible future attack and developed giant robots that will fight the monsters if and when they return.
• Most of the movie is going to be during that battle between the giant robots and the giant monsters.
• Tim Burton is developing the look for the monsters with Ken Ralston, four time Academy Award winner who has been involved with the visual effects on films such as Forrest Gump, Death Becomes Her, Back to the Future series, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Cocoon, Dragonslayer, Star Wars trilogy
• The monsters and robots are each the size of a very tall building.
• The robots are controlled by a crew inside of each one of these robots, and we’ll be seeing the battles from the inside of the bridge and the outside

So the monsters… fight aliens… in a movie for Dreamworks …in 3D.  Why, that’s so brilliant I can’t believe they haven’t already made it three or four times already.

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(Johnny Depp with Gomez and Morticia)

UPDATE 3-19: MTV spoke with Burton’s people, who said, “There is no truth to the story. Tim has not lined up any of his upcoming projects.”  So they deny it’s a done deal, but the second sentence seems to say it’s still a possibility.

In a move that I’d wonder why happened yet if it hadn’t already happened twice in the 90s, Hollywood is making an Addams Family movie.  Tim Burton will direct, because he’s already basically made like four Addams Family movies.

[From Deadline] Tim Burton will direct a 3D, stop-motion animated film based on Charles Addams’ original ghoulish cartoon drawings of The Addams Family. Illumination Entertainment, Universal’s family film unit, has acquired the underlying rights of the Addams drawings, once a staple of The New Yorker magazine.

Other than being inspired by the same source material, the animated feature is unrelated to previous incarnations of Addams’ work, the 60s TV series, the two `90s feature film comedies that Barry Sonnenfeld directed with Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston, or the Broadway musical opening this spring with Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth in the starring roles.

See?  Based on the New Yorker cartoon; totally unrelated to all those film-remakes of old TV shows and definitely not a blatant attempt to cash in.  I confess that I didn’t even know that the original Addams Family was based on a New Yorker cartoon, but that’s probably because none of the characters was a dog sitting on a psychiatrist’s couch.