George Clooney's Tomorrowland is 'Harry Potter For Science'

The first image from the George Clooney-starring ‘Tomorrowland’ has landed online, and the intrigue is building.

Entertainment Weekly got the scoop, with an artistic rendering of what looks to be an almost magical science fiction world.

Indeed, writer Damon Lindelof – famed for creating ‘Lost’ and penning ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ and ‘Prometheus’ – has intimated as much, revealing tantalising details about what was previously a closely-guarded movie plot.

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“What Hogwarts is to magic, Tomorrowland is to science,” he told the magazine.

“They are both easy to find if you are a wizard and very difficult to find if you’re a Muggle.”

The movie was spawned by a box director Brad Bird – he of ‘The Incredibles’ fame – supposedly unearthed from Walt Disney’s feted ‘Imagineering’ department.

Labeled ‘1952’, it reportedly contained all manner of archive photos, space technology literature, mysterious envelopes, and an unidentified metal object.

Bird tweeted a picture of the box but nothing more, and now details are beginning to emerge.

“Walt Disney is not a character in our movie, but he is referenced as having some involvement in this mysterious place called Tomorrowland, as a huge futurist and aficionado of space travel, rocketry, cities of the future, and space travel,” added Lindelof.

The plot revolves around Casey Newton, a teenager (played by Britt Robertson from ‘Under The Dome’), who dreams of the future but is captivated by the dismantling of the launch pads at Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Happening upon a mysterious badge, she briefly reveals another world – Tomorrowland.

“There is a piece of technology in this pin, it’s the kind of old-school pin you would wear on your lapel, and when you make physical contact with it, you have the illusion of being physically transported to another world, and that’s how Casey gets her first glimpse of Tomorrowland,” adds Lindelof.

“She is a Muggle who accidentally wanders across Platform 9 ¾ and sees something she probably shouldn’t have.”

Clooney takes the role of Frank Walker, a reclusive failed inventor, whom Casey finds as she hopes to discover more about Tomorrowland – a place he knows more about than he’s letting on.

Lindelof adds that Spielberg’s benchmark ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ is a substantial influence on the movie.

“Somehow it was able to do what no modern movies are able to do, which is tell a story that doesn’t have a bad guy who is trying to blow up the planet, or giant robots fighting, or lots of karate—though who doesn’t love karate?

“It was so not plot driven. It was just a pure discovery movie. It was pure what-if. Just that idea of what’s going on here? What does this mean? That was a real jumping off place for a movie like this.”

So there it is – that’s what we know so far, and we’re still very much intrigued.

It’s due out in the UK on May 22, and also stars Hugh Laurie, Kathryn Hahn, Keegan-Michael Key and Judy Greer.

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Image credits: EW/Disney/Getty Images