So...

It has been almost 2 weeks since my last post! My bad. People were in town, I was out of town, lots of exams.... fun times indeed.

But I am back, so let the disney blogging commence!

I went and saw Toy Story/Toy Story 2 in 3D during the opening weekend, and I have to admit, it was pretty awesome. I Thoroughly enjoyed the addition of a 3D element to these films, it worked perfectly. It seemed in some spots that the original films were designed for it. A scene that really stands out in my mind is in the first movie where Buzz is proving that he can "fly" and he latches onto the toy plane. The 3D effect there was really awesome.

I am really glad that Disney did this, because a lot of the people who will be seeing this movie (children) might not have seen the original films. We are getting to the point where the people who saw these films when they were children are starting to have children of their own and hopefully this, along with Toy Story 3 next June, will bring the two generations together.

From a financial standpoint, this was a big risk. The film needed to make $25 mil to break even. That is production and advertising costs. As of today, according to boxofficemojo.com it is just barely over that number. I think the re-release in 3D wasn't really for the profit, though it is nice to know that it wasn't a loss.

What do you think? Do you think it was the right idea to risk losing a lot of money just to refresh these films in the memory of viewers? Will it pay off in the end?

In an update on another blog post: Rich Ross did in fact get hired on as the new head of Disney Studios. Congrats to him, and I hope he can help revitalize the division to help bring out some quality films.

Thats all for now, I promise the next post I make will be much sooner than this one!

I have nothing to write about :(

People of the bloggerverse! I have an announcement! ... Actually I've got nothing.... At all.

After the big business deals a few weeks ago, things seemed to have died down a bit. There are some small things that have happened, but I couldn't write a whole post about them. So, here are some highlights that have happened recently.

Dick Cook left the Disney company rather suddenly last week(?). He was head of the Disney Studios, which oversees all of Disney's film ventures. This is really surprising because a lot has happened lately that would make that job a really valuable place to be. Pixar just put out another great film (Up), Disney acquired Marvel and all the movies that will be made (kind of...), the fairly recent deal with Dreamworks SKG for many of their upcoming films (I think it was 30), and the continuing of the Pirates franchise. AND MUPPETS! A lot of people are wondering who Mr. Iger will choose to fill the highly coveted position. A lot of eyes are looking toward Rich Ross, the head of the Disney Channel. This is a logical choice in my opinion simply because of the similarity in the industries. An inherent problem exists there though, while High School Musical, Hannah Montana, The Suite Life, and That's so Raven can bring new life to a dying television station. Will they do well on the silver screen? (Don't you DARE cite the HSM movie) Disney has put out some flops lately too... I never saw it, but I don't think "The Race to Witch Mountain" will be getting any oscars... Hopefully this all gets figured out soon. Who do you think should fill this role and why?

Disney is announced their new promotion for 2010, "Work a day of community service, and get a day at Disney World." This is a GREAT move by the people at the marketing department. It gives Disney a great image while still bringing people into the park. No where is it evident that this is really just an incredibly clever ploy to get people into the park and spending money... primarily because park attendance for 2009 is WAY down and they are hurting bad. Damn Recession. All that considered, I am in full support of this and hope that it actually gets some people off of their couch and into the community. What are your thoughts on this, do you think it will be an effective marketing tool? Or do you think that the laziness of people will overpower it.

This one isn't exactly new, but I also don't know much about it. So, I will be brief. At Animal Kingdom there is a new thing going on to adopt Sea Turtle nests. Just another way Disney is providing for nature. The cost is $50 (I think) and the nests are located near the Vero Beach resort. I like when Disney does this kind of stuff, it reminds people of that side of Disney. How, while it is still a HUGE corporation, there is still that wildlife side that seems to have been lost in the years. True Life Adventures and things like that. I actually am part owner of one of these nests :D My turtles haven't hatched yet, but I am excited for when they do!

Thats all I've got...

Until next time!

Tom

Edit: Watching the Lion King... Oh yeah, thats why it is STILL one of the highest grossing animated films.

Princess Tiana, please don't fail me!

I figured that now is as good of a time as any to talk about the upcoming movie "The Princess and the Frog." This movie is a very big deal in the world of Disney because it is the first time in 5 years that Disney will produce a 2D film drawn entirely by hand. To most people "5" seems like a smaller number than it should be; but, "Home on the Range" (2004) was also a 2D hand drawn film and it flopped. Bad. Needless to say, a LOT is riding on the success of this film.

Disney has clearly acknowledged that and looks like they are up to the challenge. They took what they know worked in the good ol' days and are bringing it to the children of today. They were right to pick a fairy tale that everyone knows but are ready to hear more about. It also has a princess, which right off the bat guarantees every family who has a daughter under that age of 14. They have gotten some really good voice talent for this film. Terrence Howard (August Rush and Iron Man) will be a great I think, although I have never seen him do voices for anything animated. Other notable voices are John Goodman, Jennifer Lewis (Flo from Cars), Oprah Winfrey, and Jim Cummings (Ed the hyena in The Lion King). The star of the show will be Anika Noni Rose, playing the part of Princess Tiana. I personally have never seen or heard anything that she has done, but her resume is pretty impressive nevertheless.

The film takes place in New Orleans and, because of this, involves all sorts of voodoo magic. I am really excited to see how the voice actors portray these types of voices, it should be pretty interesting. I am anxious to see all the backgrounds and colors that they use for this, my personal favorite animated Disney film to date would be "Hercules" and a lot of that is because of the vibrant colors they used for the gods of Mt. Olympus. I'm hoping to see some of the same talent (obviously, I don't expect characters to glow :).

All things considered, I think that this will be a great return to the hand drawn field for Disney. I am definitely waiting anxiously for December 11 to get here.

Alice in Creepyland...

So, Tim Burton is doing a remake of Alice in Wonderland. This is huge news and I figured I can't really ignore it. That, and my sister told me to make a post about it.

Now, Disney's old Alice masterpiece was by no means creepy. It was more along the lines of "weird" in my opinion. I know the book is supposedly really creepy (I haven't read it), and I figure Disney was trying to keep some of that while still appealing to children 50 years ago. But now it is 2009 and children are fully capable of handling a Jabberwocky, so who better to bring the novels full creepiness to life than Tim Burton.

I am not a die hard Tim Burton fan, and I haven't seen all his films. I would say I am about 50% on the Tim Burton scale, I like about half of what he does. But, I am VERY excited about this movie. I feel like this is exactly what he does best, and I think he will pull through quite well. It is a Tim Burton movie, so Johnny Depp will probably perform to his fullest; they are collaborating for the 9th time, so they probably know each other pretty well.

The "Harry Potter Crew" that we saw in Sweeny Todd, and obviously the Harry Potter movies, is showing up in this movie as well. Including Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, and Timothy Spall. As well as Christopher Lee (Sauruman from LOTR), Stephen Fry (V for Vendetta's Dietrich) and a new promising actress named Mia Wasikowska for the films title role. The cast looks promising and I know Burton will do great things with it. Watch for this movie March 5th 2010.

What are your thoughts on the movie? Who are you most excited to see? What part of the Alice story are you waiting to see through the eyes of Tim Burton?

To... the future!

Quick post before I go to my next class.

If you were to take a video camera to any of the Disney Parks and record your whole experience, then look at it 15 years from now. What would you say? What do you hope will have changed, and in what way?
Do this for any of the parks, but be specific!

I'll do one later today after class.

Announcements from D23 Expo

Just a quick post about some of the announcements that were announced (confirmed) at the D23 expo this weekend. I think that everyone that reads this might already know. These are the announcements that interest me the most.

• A new 3D star tours video for the fading attraction. If done tastefully, I think this could be a great addition. That attraction has deteriorated a lot. My only worry is that they are going to try and make it feel like you ARE one of the specific characters in the movies. Rather than in the old one where you were there at the same time as the movie took place, but you weren't one of the characters from the film. I also feel like Disney might try to cover too much and span multiple movies which would destroy the integrity of the attraction. Simply because of the amount of time that is between movies.
• The gigantic Fantasyland refurb was confirmed. YAY!
  
• Little Mermaid Darkride- Way past due.
• Themed meet and greets for all princesses, and tink. Great addition.
• New quick service and Fine Dine themed on beauty and the beast. Be our guest?
• New Pirates Movie- Expected. New Cars Movie- Will be good, when has Pixar failed? New Muppets Movie- :D

Those are the things that interested me the most. I only posted so much about Star Tours because I think it is where there is the most potential for failure. What about you? What are you most excited about? Any other announcements that caught your eye? How bad do you wish you would have been there? :(

Tom

Mickey Mouse, Magneto, and Master Chief

So, for the first post, I figured I would go ahead and get right into the thick of it. Until I get better at these, it might just seem like news... but I want to hear your opinions! I want to be able to discuss these things with people.

Disney has been busy over the past few weeks. First they announced the $4 billion Marvel acquisition, and then shortly after they announced the far less publicized, but just as important, Wideload Games acquisition. These 2 aquisitions open up a huge market for Disney and here is why.

First a background of the companies acquired... Marvel is... well it is Marvel, theyve been big comic people since your parents parents were reading comics. Not much to say on that front. They recently started producing their own films under the name "Marvel Studios," with their first film being Iron Man. Now, there is probably far less known about Wideload Games. Wideload games is a small video game firm at about 25 employees, based out of Chicago. They are responsible for a few smaller titles that are riding the digital distribution wave, being featured on Steam (a digital computer game distribution system). A more important note is that the founder and CEO of Wideload, Alexander Seropian, was co-founder of Bungie Software, which produced the ever-popular and still growing franchise of "Halo."

It's really obvious where Disney is going with the combination of these two acquisitons. They are targeting teenage boys through video games and TV shows. It turns out that Marvel characters are probably more appealing to boys aged 12-17 than Pirates are. And what do boys that age do? Play video games... a lot. The video game industry has lost a lot of sales since the recession, but they still have a bright future. And with this combination of creative talent and a HUGE pool of characters to draw from, Disney will surely pull out some pretty quality video games in the years to come.

I personally hope that the Wideload acquisition might also have something to do with the rumored game currently being called "Epic Mickey," which looks amazing. Some concept art can be seen here. Althought that project looks like it might already be fully underway.

Onto the implications of the Marvel acquisition... If you are like me, one of the first things that you thought of when you heard about this was "What about Marvel Superhero Island at Universal's Islands of Adventure theme park?!" Well, after a little digging I have found at least some information.

As it turns out, Marvel has a HUGE tangle of licensing issues that will (probably) take years for Disney to sort through. As I mentioned before, Marvel only recently started producing and financing its own films, before that they would simply license them to other studios. Sony had licensing rights for the first three Spider Man movies and, after their success, got rights to do three more and even beyond that. Similarly, Twentieth Century Fox has the rights to the X-Men Movies. Universal Studios made the most recent Hulk failure. Disney plans on continuing the popular franchises (assuming their still popular) as these contracts run up but, if they want to do anything right now then they are going to have to use some of the other Marvel characters that aren't currently in the main stream (maybe they will make a Ghostrider sequal... Disney seems to love them some Nick Cage...).

Concerning theme parks, Universal has the rights to use Marvel characters in theme parks located in Florida and Japan. Forever. So, don't ever expect to see a walk around of Iron Man at Hollywood Studios. It probably will never happen. But, Bob Iger said he may use the Marvel characters in properties located in "California, Hong Kong, Paris, and elsewhere." (God only knows what that implies... *Crosses Fingers*)

To me, I think that, aside from all the licensing confusion, these were both great acquisitions on Disney's part. This is going to lead them into a new market where hopefully some much-needed profit is. It also sets Disney up to be in prime position after the market climbs out of the recession. My only concern is that they might have msised the comic book craze. I am not sure if it will ever die out, but there have been a lot of comic book movies over the last 10 years.

So, what does this mean to you? How do you feel about it? Lets hear it! Remember, the whole point of this is to have some discussion.

Tom

Sources:

Wall Street Journal:

"Disney Nabs Marvel Heroes" by Ethan Smith and Lauren A. E. Schuker

"Disney Buys Videogame Company" by Nat Worden

Disney's Press Releases on acquiring the companies

Wideload's website (Wideload.com)

"Disney Buys Videogame Company" by Nat Worden

Disney's Press Releases on acquiring the companies

Wideload's website (Wideload.com)