James Ponsoldt to direct Disney film, 'Wild City'

Image from Vanity Fair

By Darian Scalamoni

            James Ponsoldt is a fantastic filmmaker who has been making these small scale indies like The Spectacular Now and The End of the Tour, but today, he gets the green light to direct a film for one of the biggest studios, if not, the biggest in Disney. According to The Playlist, Ponsoldt will direct, write and produce Wild City. The movie will be an original concept from the director and will be live-action as well as have a CGI element with animals. The film is set to take place in Los Angeles.

            Based on the description for the film, it’s hard not to think of a live-action Zootopia type of film that Ponsoldt is directing. I’m a huge fan of the talent choices that Disney has been making as of late to bring in these bright filmmakers that have made smaller scale stories and brought them to light in such a huge way like Ponsoldt, Ava DuVernay (Selma) and even David Lowery (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints) who just directed the live-action feature Pete’s Dragon, set to be released next week.

            Though I thought The Spectacular Now was just a fine movie, The End of the Tour was one of my favorite films of 2015. It was extremely well paced, directed and featured fine acting from both Jason Segel and Jesse Eisenberg. Ponsoldt’s next film is titled The Circle and follows a woman that lands a job at a powerful tech company with the same name before being involved with a mysterious man. That movie will be released later this year and stars Emma Watson, John Boyega and Tom Hanks.