| Disney - the most beloved industry! | | Posted Wednesday, January 25, 2006 2:24:09 PM by Alex Molin | Most of us associate "Disney" with childhood fantasies, hours of fun in front of the big and small screen, and many adorable Disney cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, princess Jasmine and many others who became real movie stars. 
Behind all that Disney fun and fantasy lies a huge and professional industry. Most likely you all visited (as children or with your children) Disney world and Disney land.
You probably watched the Disney channel, or bought something in one of the numerous Disney stores all over the world offering Disney accessories such as dolls, clothes, and most popular Disney games in which the players are experiencing the film once again but this time more interactively.
If you are a real Disney fan, you might have participated in one of the Disney cruise or took a special Disney vacation. Who's behind this? The great man of course: Walt Disney. But he was not alone.
On 1919 Walt Disney and Ubbe Iwwerks form a company called Iwwerks-Disney Commercial Artists and the rest is history.
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| | | Resort packages: A slice of 'Pirates' life to tie in with 3rd movie release in May | | Posted Wednesday, December 27, 2006 3:05:41 PM by Blog57 Team | | Fans of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies will get a chance to celebrate the May release of the third film at Walt Disney World by purchasing pirates-themed resort packages costing between $199 and $2,350 per person. The Pirates of the Caribbean Adventures on the 7 Seas Lagoon promotional weekend will be held at Disney's Contemporary Resort, May 22-25. The activities will culminate in a midnight showing of the new movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, on the film's general opening day, May 25. The screening at Pleasure Island AMC Theater, however, won't be the movie's world premiere, the Disney World Web site disneygallery.com notes. Three packages carry price tags of $199, $700 and $2,350 per person. All include the midnight movie, pirate-themed meals, entertainment, seminars with special guests, commemorative merchandise, and admission to an auction.... | |
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| | | Digital pay issues vex actors, writers | | Posted Sunday, October 22, 2006 11:03:19 PM by Blog57 Team | | NBC lets consumers download Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Heroes. ABC makes episodes of Lost and Ugly Betty available free online a day after they air. MySpace offers episodes of the Fox drama Prison Break, and Walt Disney Co.'s The Little Mermaid can be purchased for download to a video iPod. In a digital free-for-all, Hollywood trumpets another round of ventures nearly every week making TV series and films accessible on the Internet. .... | |
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| | | Disney to buy video game company | | Posted Sunday, October 01, 2006 3:05:16 AM by Blog57 Team | | Walt Disney Co.'s Buena Vista Games Inc. agreed to buy the maker of auto-racing video games "MotoGP" and "ATV Offroad Fury," extending an effort to increase the number of titles that Disney produces in-house. Terms of the purchase of Brighton, England-based Climax Racing, a unit of Climax Group Ltd., weren't disclosed, Buena Vista Games General Manager Graham Hopper said in an interview. The price is similar to what Buena Vista paid for previous video game studios, "all sub-$50 million deals," he said. Climax is the third video-game maker that Disney, based in Burbank, Calif., has bought or started in the past 18 months. Disney, the second-largest U.S. media company, has tripled the size of its video-game unit to about 600 employees in the past two years to produce more of its own titles that can appeal to children and adults, Hopper said.... | |
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| | | 'Pirates' helps fill Hollywood war chest | | Posted Monday, September 04, 2006 1:30:25 AM by Blog57 Team | | LOS ANGELES - The Hollywood hand-wringing of 2005 has been forgotten. After a dismal box-office year and gloomy prophecies about its future, the movie business has rebounded with a solid - though far from spectacular - summer season. Led by one of the biggest all-time hits, Johnny Depp's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," Hollywood will have rung up about $3.85 billion in domestic ticket sales from the first weekend in May through Labor Day, up 6.3 percent from the same period last year, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. Factoring in higher ticket prices, movie attendance was up about 3.1 percent. "If every year were like this, it would be fine," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations. "Hollywood will take solid over slump any day." For summer 2005, revenues declined 8.5 percent and attendance tumbled 11.4 percent compared to 2004's.... | |
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| | | Miracle Studios keeps 2-D films alive | | Posted Thursday, August 31, 2006 3:03:43 AM by Blog57 Team | | RICHFIELD, Wis. - Tom Hignite knew something was off when he went to the Disney studios in Florida three years ago and saw empty easels instead of animators working on a film. Hignite later heard they had been laid off - since fans were going to see more computer-animated movies and box-office sales had been lagging for classic hand-drawn, or two-dimensional, movies. Having gone to school for art, he didn't want 2-D films to die. He had been successful owning a home building company in southeastern Wisconsin, and decided to put money into a studio that would make only 2-D cartoons. So in 2004 he started Miracle Studios in Polk, about 30 miles north of Milwaukee. He originally hired 12 animators, who have worked at Disney, Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros. They also sometimes work from Hignite's Richfield home.... | |
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| | | Family films aren't always fit for children | | Posted Sunday, August 13, 2006 5:19:58 PM by Blog57 Team | | There are many definitions of "family," but according to the Webster's dictionary on my desk, this one applies to "family movies": "designed or suitable for both children and adults." So maybe it's the definition of "suitable" that seems to elude so many filmmakers and television producers in Hollywood. This occurred to me as I watched the new straight-to-video high school-cheerleader sequel "Bring It On: All or Nothing." The first on-screen credit reads: "Universal Studios Family Productions." The PG-13 rating is a red flag, of course. As everyone knows, most PG-13 movies these days might as well be rated R. How about R-13? Nonetheless, the "Family Productions" credit led me to believe .... | |
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| | | "Talladega Night" hot at the movies; "World Trade Center" opens Wednesday | | Posted Tuesday, August 08, 2006 7:04:42 PM by Blog57 Team | | Racing comedy "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" enjoyed life in the fast lane with a No. 1 finish in the weekend box office race, taking in $47 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. But the picture changes again on Wednesday when Oliver Stones hard-hitting drama World Trade Center thunders into theaters nationally and locally. Talladega Nights, showing at the Carmike, Hollywood, Biltmore Square, Epic in Hendersonville and the Flat Rock Cinema in Flat Rock, is one of those movies pardon the pun firing on all cylinders, said Rory Bruer, president of distribution for Sony Pictures Entertainment. .... | |
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| | | 'Pirates' 2 is just too much | | Posted Saturday, July 22, 2006 9:38:40 PM by Blog57 Team | | If producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski were seeking to create a dizzying simulation of a theme-park ride with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Mans Chest complete with hairpin twists, turns and loops that leave you wondering if youre coming or going then my hat is off to them. .... | |
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| | | Alicia Keys in the Disney castle; Regina King returns to the boob tube; 'A Different World' is back again. | | Posted Tuesday, July 18, 2006 11:05:31 AM by Blog57 Team | | With nine Grammy Awards to her credit, neo-soul music wunderkind Alicia Keys is set to take Hollywood by storm with her recent deal with Disney. The platinum-selling prodigy will produce and act in an array of projects. "I never wanted to play myself, not in the first role or even the second. I want to do the unexpected," Keys said. Read the Last BV Entertainment NewswireGet the Latest Entertainment Newswire Feed HereSign Up For BV Entertainment Newswire AlertsBack to Black Voices Entertainment .... | |
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| | | Disney's 'Pirates' sequels braved storms, delays | | Posted Saturday, July 01, 2006 5:11:25 AM by Blog57 Team | | In the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," Johnny Depp plays a swashbuckler who sets off on an arduous adventure that takes him through cannibal-infested jungles and monster-ridden seas. For the studio behind the sequel, Walt Disney Co., getting the movie to screen has been an equally harrowing journey. In deciding to make this and the next sequel to its original 2003 blockbuster back-to-back, Disney embarked on what turned out to be the biggest movie bet it has ever made. Initially budgeted at a combined $350 million, the two movies are now expected to cost more than $450 million. Along the way, the pain and expense of the rigorous production has left little room for error. When hurricanes swept through the Caribbean set, production had to be halted for a nail-biting week.... | |
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