Disney Looks To Jump On The Comic Movie Bandwagon After Lackluster Summer
According to a post on the Disney-centric Jim Hill Media blog, word around the “House of the Mouse” is that, after a disappointing summer at the box office — led by “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” which earned just $141 million after costing $200 million to produce — the studio will follow Warner’s and Marvel’s lead and look to “get into the comic book movie game,” as Hill puts it. However, Hill make the obvious point that, the problem with getting into the game this late means any and all of the most recognizable characters and franchises have already been snapped up by other studios and production companies.
On the other hand, this could be one of the main reasons why Disney recently partnered with comic living legend Stan Lee to bring new superheroes and concepts to Disney (such as the “Time Jumper” franchise). Likewise, this could also mean that their recently announced graphic novel division, Kingdom Comics, could become all the more vital to Disney’s movie plans moving forward.
- from MTV
Disney, Bruckheimer to make a ‘Killing’
Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer have acquired screen rights to “Killing Rommel,” a novel by Steven Pressfield.
Book, about a British battalion’s attempt to thwart German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s desert campaign, was published in the spring by Doubleday.Randall Wallace will write the script with Pressfield. Bruckheimer will produce.
“Killing Rommel” focuses on the British Long Range Desert Group and its attempt to stop Rommel, the legendary Desert Fox who routed the British in the North African desert in 1942 and threatened to overrun the Middle East thanks to his battlefield strategies and Panzer tanks.
As scribe, Wallace has covered warfare in “Braveheart” and the Bruckheimer-produced “Pearl Harbor.” He adapted and directed the Vietnam War drama “We Were Soldiers.”
- from Variety
Muppet Show to return to TV after 27 years?
The Jim Henson-created characters may be on their way back thanks to a new Disney Film.
In the movie, written by Forgetting Sarah Marshall star and writer Jason Segel, the Muppets reunite to save their studio with one last variety show.
Should the film go well, it opens up the possibility of a television programme, also written by 28-year-old Segel.
A source said: “Jason is a massive Muppets fan and is seen as the man to finally bring The Muppet Show back to TV.
“It will obviously have all its old fans but Jason’s comedy is hugely popular with youngsters so it will open it up to a whole new audience.”
The source added: “If the movie script is popular Jason will write the TV series too. He is already coming up with ideas for it.”
- from UK
Disney Classics Coming to Blu-ray! Pinocchio, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia and Beauty & the Beast!
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (WDSHE) proudly unveils five additions to the celebrated Platinum Collection of animated features to be released on DVD and for the first time ever on Disney Blu-ray Hi-Def. These include some of Disney’s most beloved classics Pinocchio, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Fantasia 2000 and Beauty and the Beast. Each will be available for a limited time only, in new multi-disc sets featuring rarely seen footage and an array of new bonus features.
Fittingly the one that started it all for Walt Disney, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first feature length animated film ever made, will be the title that will mark a new era in home entertainment around the world, launching Disney’s worldwide BD-Live Network, a revolutionary technological breakthrough in home entertainment that will connect family and friends, allowing unprecedented interactivity and ease, from anywhere in the world.
Disney’s BD-Live Network will be initially launched in the U.S. only, with the first Platinum Edition Blu-ray release, Sleeping Beauty 50th Anniversary Platinum Edition, available on October 7, 2008.
Bob Chapek, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment Worldwide President, commented, ”We are excited to announce a magical slate of Platinum titles for the first time on Blu-ray high definition, this celebrated collection of animated features demonstrates Disney’s commitment to deliver great content.”
“The landscape for the Blu-ray format is very healthy, and we believe that the enhanced movie experiences that the format provides, such as Disney’s BD-Live network, offer consumers the chance to reinvent the experience of watching movies in their homes, and the interactivity and connectivity that is being provided will truly make the family room relevant again,” continues Mr. Chapek.
Gordon Ho is Executive Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (WDSHE) adds, “Disney’s BD-Live experience will enrich and deepen the overall consumer experience, and we are delighted that, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs will be the one that will launch Disney’s BD-Live network worldwide.”
The Platinum release roll-out will be:
Pinocchio, the beloved story of a wooden puppet who wants to become a real boy, comes to Platinum Edition DVD and Disney Blu-ray in spring 2009. Disney’s second full-length animated movie, Pinocchio won two Oscars®, one for Best Score and another for the unforgettable song “When You Wish upon a Star.” It returns for the first time since 2002.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, honored with a special Academy Award® for screen innovation this movie has been unavailable since 2001. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Platinum Edition will be released in the fall of 2009.
Walt Disney’s experimental masterpiece Fantasia won two honorary Oscars for its innovative use of animation and music. Most recently released in 2000, the restored and remastered Fantasia Platinum Edition will be available in 2010. Alongside this release, a newly restored and remastered Fantasia 2000 Platinum Edition, will be available. Fantasia 2000 begins where its predecessor, Fantasia, left off, with seven completely new segments and the return of the popular “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, featuring breathtaking images coupled with classical music favorites.
In conjunction with these releases, Destino, the unfinished animated feature film created by Walt Disney and famed surrealist painter Salvador Dali will release. Begun in 1946, it was rediscovered in 2003 and completed by Walt’s nephew, Roy E. Disney. The collaboration between these two legendary artists will be available to own for the first time along with an all-new feature-length documentary that examines the surprising partnership between Dali and Disney.
Beauty and the Beast, the only animated film ever nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Picture, earned a breathtaking six Academy Award® nominations and won two Oscars®. Beauty in the Beast Platinum Edition will be available in fall 2010.
WALL-E coming to Blu-ray
On November 18, Disney and Buena Vista Home Entertainment will release Wall-E on Blu-ray Disc, day-and-date with DVD.
Wall-E will be configured similarly to Disney’s Prince Caspian in two and three-disc packages. The third disc will include Disney File, aka a standard definition digital copy of the film. Unlike Prince Caspian, we expect the two-disc edition to include a slipcover.
Pixar films have always been given a royal treatment on home video and Wall-E is not about to break the trend. Like Cars and Ratatouille before it, Wall-E includes a number of Blu-ray exclusives including popular Cine-Explore. The remaining supplemental features are detailed below with Blu-ray exclusives noted.
Digital Copy (Blu-ray 3-Disc exclusive)
Burn-E: All-new animated short
Burn-E with Boards - picture-in-picture (Blu-ray exclusive)
Cine-Explor with director Andrew Stanton (Blu-ray exclusive)
Axoim Arcade: retro suite of videogames with a twist (Blu-ray exclusive)
Geek Track (Blu-ray exclusive)
BD-Live Network (Blu-ray exclusive)
Preston Animated Short
Deleted Scenes
Sneak Peek: Wall-E’s Tour of the Universe
Animated Sound Design - Building Worlds from the Sound Up
Audio Commentary with Director Andrew Stanton
The Pixar Story by Leslie Iwerks
Additional Deleted Scenes
Wall-E’s Treasures and Trinkets
BnL Shorts - Amusing peek into the inner workings of the Buy n Large Corporation
Lots of Bots Storybook
Making of Featurette
We don’t have technical specs to share yet but you can safely assume a minimum of 1080p video and 5.1 uncompressed audio.
The two-disc edition of Wall-E on Blu-ray will carry an SRP of $35.99 while the three-disc set will clock in at $40.99. We’ll pass along spec and additional artwork updates as received.
How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity
A few years ago, I had lunch with the head of a major motion picture studio, who declared that his central problem was not finding good people—it was finding good ideas. Since then, when giving talks, I’ve asked audiences whether they agree with him. Almost always there’s a 50/50 split, which has astounded me because I couldn’t disagree more with the studio executive. His belief is rooted in a misguided view of creativity that exaggerates the importance of the initial idea in creating an original product. And it reflects a profound misunderstanding of how to manage the large risks inherent in producing breakthroughs.
When it comes to producing breakthroughs, both technological and artistic, Pixar’s track record is unique. In the early 1990s, we were known as the leading technological pioneer in the field of computer animation. Our years of R&D culminated in the release of Toy Story in 1995, the world’s first computer-animated feature film. In the following 13 years, we have released eight other films (A Bug’s Life; Toy Story 2; Monsters, Inc.; Finding Nemo; The Incredibles; Cars; Ratatouille; and WALL·E), which also have been blockbusters. Unlike most other studios, we have never bought scripts or movie ideas from the outside. All of our stories, worlds, and characters were created internally by our community of artists. And in making these films, we have continued to push the technological boundaries of computer animation, securing dozens of patents in the process.
While I’m not foolish enough to predict that we will never have a flop, I don’t think our success is largely luck. Rather, I believe our adherence to a set of principles and practices for managing creative talent and risk is responsible. Pixar is a community in the true sense of the word. We think that lasting relationships matter, and we share some basic beliefs: Talent is rare. Management’s job is not to prevent risk but to build the capability to recover when failures occur. It must be safe to tell the truth. We must constantly challenge all of our assumptions and search for the flaws that could destroy our culture. In the last two years, we’ve had a chance to test whether our principles and practices are transferable. After Pixar’s 2006 merger with the Walt Disney Company, its CEO, Bob Iger, asked me, chief creative officer John Lasseter, and other Pixar senior managers to help him revive Disney Animation Studios. The success of our efforts prompted me to share my thinking on how to build a sustainable creative organization.
- from Harvard
Disney preps for ‘RoboDZ’
“RoboDz,” a toon co-produced by Toei Animation and Walt Disney Television Intl. Japan will be broadcast on the Disney XD channel Stateside in February.
“RoboDz” has been airing since June twice a week on the Toon Disney channel in Japan, but this will be its first overseas bow.
- from Variety
DVD fans reprise “Island” getaway
DVD buyers and renters had island fever for the second consecutive week. With no big new theatrical features hitting stores, “Nim’s Island” remained on top of the national video sales and rental charts during its sophomore week in stores.
The family adventure from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment topped the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales chart and Home Media Magazine’s rental chart for the week ended August 17.
The lack of new hit movies opened the sales chart to a rash of TV-DVD season sets and smaller films that might not have debuted as high had there been any theatrical competition. On the First Alert sales chart, for example, Paramount’s “South Park: Season 11″ bowed at No. 2, while Fox’s Season 3 set of “Prison Break” debuted at No. 4. HBO’s “The Wire: Season 5″ came in at No. 6, and Disney/Miramax’s “Smart People,” a satiric film about academia, debuted at No. 7.
Meanwhile, on Home Media Magazine’s rental chart, “Smart People” bowed at No. 2, chalking up 93 percent as much action in rental stores as “Nim’s Island.”
- from Reuters
Disney says no to ‘Musical’ panties — well, we know Vanessa Hudgens doesn’t wear any
Disney said on Friday that it has stopped selling a line of panties for girls after parents in Britain complained about the message printed on them.
The underwear, made for ‘tween girls, invited the the reader to ”Dive In” and was, according to company officials, themed for a swimming pool scene from the Disney Channel hit movie,”High School Musical 2.”
Ahh to have been in that product brainstorming session!
In that scene, “HSM2? boyfriend and girlfriend, Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens, sing about their love and dance in and around a swimming pool at the country club whereboth of their characters work during the summer.
- from Reuters
Disney saddles up ‘Secretariat’
Randall Wallace is saddling up at Disney to direct “Secretariat,” the Mike Rich-scripted film about the 1973 Triple Crown-winning racehorse and its owner, Penny Chenery.
Last year, Disney acquired the rights to Chenery’s life story. The film is being produced by Mayhem Pictures partners Mark Ciardi and Gordon Gray (Daily Variety, May 8, 2007).
Chenery was a mother and housewife who knew little about horses when she was pressed to take over her ailing father’s horse farm in Virginia. Though Secretariat came along and began to take shape as a potential champion, Chenery was pressured to sell the farm after her father died and she was hit with a multimillion-dollar inheritance tax.
- from Variety