Soon after Disney acquired Lucasfilm, the axe was put to the popular animated TV series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars.  The show was nixed because it was created before the acquisition, and aired on Cartoon Network as opposed to Disney’s kids channel, Disney XD.  But we knew a replacement wouldn’t be far behind, and now the studio has announced that production is underway on the new animated series, Star Wars Rebels.  Simon Kinberg (who also working on a Star Wars spin-off/standalone film) will executive produce and write the screenplay for the one-hour series premiere.  Dave Filoni (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and Greg Weisman (Young Justice) will also executive produce (i.e. these two will probably be the showrunners).  The series will take place during the twenty years between Episode III and Episode IV, and shows “a time where the Empire is securing its grip on the galaxy and hunting down the last of the Jedi Knights as a fledgling rebellion against the Empire is taking shape.”  If Admiral Ackbar is not a main character, then this entire series is pointless.

The series will premiere in fall 2014 on the Disney Channel before moving to Disney XD.  Hit the jump for video of Pablo Hidalgo talking with Filoni about the series.  We’ve also included the press release.

The animated series TRON: Uprising, premiering on Disney XD on June 7^th, takes place after the 1982 feature film and before the events in TRON: Legacy. Produced in CG animation with a 2D aesthetic, the series follows the heroic journey of a new character named Beck (voiced by Elijah Wood), a young program who becomes the unlikely leader of a revolution inside the computer world of The Grid.  You can watch the first episode here.

At the press day for this highly anticipated new show, actor Paul Reubens, who voices Pavel, General Tesler’s (voiced by Lance Henriksen) untrustworthy base commander who will do whatever it takes to get ahead, talked about finding the voice for the character, playing a villain, and how he had a toy from the original TRON movie.  He also gave an update on the status of the next Pee-Wee Herman movie (produced by Judd Apatow), and his love of reality television, even alluding to the fact that he might be developing his own reality show.  Check out what he had to say after the jump:

While many TRON fans are still waiting (possibly in vain) for a sequel to TRON: Legacy, Disney XD is bringing fresh TRON goodness right into the comfort of your own living room.  The animated TRON: Uprising series doesn’t debut until June 7th, the first episode has been put online for those that are eager to get a peek at what’s in store.  I’m not exactly the biggest TRON fan, but I’ve heard really great things about Uprising.  From the bit of this episode that I watched, the animation looks pretty nifty and I’m sure fans of the films will enjoy visiting the TRON world through a weekly series.  The story takes place between the events of TRON and TRON: Legacy.

Hit the jump to watch the full episode.  The voice cast includes Elijah Wood, Lance Henriksen, Mandy Moore, Nate Corddry, Paul Reubens, and Bruce Boxleitner.

In the Disney XD animated action-adventure series Ultimate Spider-Man, premiering from Marvel Animation on April 1^st, 16-year-old Peter Parker (voiced by Drake Bell) has been saving New York City from villains as his alter-ego Spider-Man for the past year while juggling his life at Midtown High School with best friends Mary-Jane Watson (voiced by Tara Strong) and Harry Osborn (voiced by Matt Lanter), who are both unaware of his secret identity. Still in need of the discipline to best utilize his gifts, S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury (voiced by Chi McBride) offers Spidey the chance to train with the best and plants Agent Coulson (voiced by Clark Gregg) as the school principal to keep a watchful eye and him and four other teenage superheroes – Nova, White Tiger, Power Man and Iron Fist.

During this recent interview to promote the new Marvel Universe series, actor Clark Gregg talked about how his relationship with Marvel started, getting to explore this side of the Agent Coulson character, the transition in going from playing this character in live-action films to only having his voice to bring the character to life, how Agent Coulson is a man who takes his work very seriously, and how he sees the tone of this show. He also talked about having recently seen a cut of Joss Whedon’s The Avengers, and how he thinks audiences will be as impressed with the film as he was. Check out what he had to say after the jump:

In the Disney XD animated action-adventure series Ultimate Spider-Man, premiering from Marvel Animation on April 1^st, 16-year-old Peter Parker (voiced by Drake Bell) has been saving New York City from villains as his alter-ego Spider-Man for the past year while juggling his life at Midtown High School with best friends Mary-Jane Watson (voiced by Tara Strong) and Harry Osborn (voiced by Matt Lanter), who are both unaware of his secret identity. Still in need of the discipline to best utilize his gifts, S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury (voiced by Chi McBride) offers Spidey the chance to train with the best and plants Agent Coulson (voiced by Clark Gregg) as the school principal to keep a watchful eye and him and four other teenage superheroes – Nova, White Tiger, Power Man and Iron Fist.

During this recent interview to promote the new Marvel Universe series, Marvel icon Stan Lee, who is both co-executive producer and the voice of Stan the Janitor, talked about how involved he is with this project, how much fun he has doing cameos in the Marvel live-action blockbuster films, that his cameos in The Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man are his best and funniest yet, how he’s waiting for the call to do an Iron Man 3 cameo, what it like for him to see his comic book characters last for so long, and what he thinks the most significant changes in the Marvel universe are, over the last 50 years. Check out what he had to say after the jump:

In the Disney XD animated action-adventure series Ultimate Spider-Man, premiering from Marvel Animation on April 1^st, 16-year-old Peter Parker (voiced by Drake Bell) has been saving New York City from villains as his alter-ego Spider-Man for the past year while juggling his life at Midtown High School with best friends Mary-Jane Watson (voiced by Tara Strong) and Harry Osborn (voiced by Matt Lanter), who are both unaware of his secret identity. Still in need of the discipline to best utilize his gifts, S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury (voiced by Chi McBride) offers Spidey the chance to train with the best and plants Agent Coulson (voiced by Clark Gregg) as the school principal to keep a watchful eye and him and four other teenage superheroes, including Nova, White Tiger, Power Man and Iron Fist.

During this recent interview to promote the new Marvel Universe series, executive producers Jeph Loeb (Head of Marvel Television) and Joe Quesada (Chief Creative Officer of Marvel Entertainment) talked about what makes Marvel stories easily recognizable, the tone they wanted to go for with this latest Spider-Man show and establishing the aesthetic they wanted for the show. They also talked about the possibility of releasing all the episodes of The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in one Blu-ray package, and the status if the live-action series Marvel currently has in development like The Incredible Hulk, aka Jessica Jones, Mockingbird and Cloak and Dagger.  Check out what they had to say after the jump:

A new preview for the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series has gone online. This new TV iteration of everyone’s favorite webslinger comes from Marvel and features not only Spider-Man, but also White Tiger, Iron Fist, Power Man, Nova and Nick Fury as well. We get a glimpse and everybody in action in this 30-second preview, and it looks like a lot of fun. Spidey is voiced by Drake Bell (Superhero Movie) and the series is part of Marvel’s new block of programming on Disney XD deemed “Marvel Universe.”

Hit the jump to watch the preview. Ultimate Spider-Man premieres on April 1st at 11am EST on Disney XD.

When the Walt Disney Company and Marvel announced their joint partnership a few years ago, both sides knew that there were some incredible creative opportunities and a whole lot of coin to be made in the years ahead. That more or less sums up what the Disney Channels’ President and Chief Creative Officer Gary Marsh said during a presentation at TCA. While I’m paraphrasing, of course, Marsh did go on to announce the next step in their partnership: a block of Marvel-themed series on Disney XD which will be called Marvel Universe, featuring a new collaboration, Ultimate Spider-Man. The new iteration will be the first time that Spidey, voiced by Drake Bell (Superhero Movie), won’t be going it along, as he’ll be joined by White Tiger, Iron Fist, Power Man and Nova, all of Nick Fury’s S.H.I.E.L.D. While that’s good news for fans of the web-head, Marsh also talked about the premiere of their anticipated animated series, TRON: Uprising. Hit the jump to see what he had to say.

I liked Tron: Legacy more than most of you, but I understand the complaints.  I hope that Disney XD’s new animated series Tron: Uprising is a source of redemption, much like Genndy Tartakovsky’s Star Wars: Clone Wars rose from the ashes of disappointment in the prequels.  After all, few worlds are better suited for animation than the Grid.

Disney XD premiered new footage at Comic-Con last week, and posted the clip online today.  As expected, it looks pretty darn cool.  Elijah Wood, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Mandy Moore, Paul Reubens, Lance Henriksen, and Bruce Boxleitner provide voices for the series.  Watch the new clip after the break.

After TRON: Legacy landed with a thud, I’ve found it difficult to care about where the story goes from here.  However, Disney still believes in their black-and-neon franchise and they’re moving forward with the new animated series TRON: Uprising.  The series will air on Disney XD in summer 2012 and cover the events between the original TRON and Legacy.  A teaser trailer for the series has gone online and if you loved TRON: Legacy, then you’ll probably love this too.  It has light cycles and stuff.

More promising is an upcoming remix of TRON: Legacy‘s outstanding score.  Pitchfork reports that Disney will release Tron: Legacy R3CONFIGUR3D on April 5th and it will feature M83, Photek, Moby, Com Truise, and others remixing Daft Punk’s score.  The remix soundtrack is available to buy in various special editions on the score’s official website.  Hit the jump to check out the TRON: Uprising trailer and the track list for Tron: Legacy R3CONFIGUR3D.

TRON: Legacy has underperformed at the box office, but Disney may be close to taking viewers back to the Grid anyway.  AICN reports that the film is close crossing $300 million worldwide, which would be fantastic…had the film and its epic marketing campaign been inexpensive.  Harry Knowles reports that TRON: Legacy “is getting close, incredibly close to having its SEQUEL announced.”

For thoughts on where the potential sequel could go and what’s in store for the TRON franchise, hit the jump.

With Disney’s long awaited sequel Tron Legacy hitting theaters in a little over a month, fans are foaming at the mouth for everything Tron related. Even after the movie gets released, audiences will have something new to look forward to on the grid as Variety reports Disney XD has ordered Tron: Uprising an animated series being developed for release in the summer of 2012. Charlie Bean (Samurai Jack) will executive produce and direct the series, so you know the action will be amazing, and Tron Legacy writers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz will serve as consulting producers. For more on the new series including the interesting list of cast members, hit the jump