Category: Disney News

While media networks in the country are busy launching and promoting their own over-the-top (OTT) or digital video streaming platforms, Disney India has decided on a different route to capture the digital audience.

Come April 28 and the network will launch its first-ever web-series, Girl in the City, on Facebook’s video platform. The 13-episode series will follow the life of Meer Sehgal from Dehradun, who shifts to Mumbai to pursue a career in the fashion industry. While each new episode of the series will premiere on Facebook’s video platform every Thursday, it will be followed by a re-run on the network’s youth entertainment channel, Bindaas, the next day, followed by a wider digital release on YouTube every Saturday.

“The idea of having a phased release serves two purposes. It gives scope for the content to go viral on digital and, at the same time, does not isolate the TV audience that Bindaas has. On Facebook, we have more than eight million engaged fans, who are the core target group of the channel. So, engaging with them first helps release the content to the right set and has potential of sharing. The TV-run caters the content to our viewers who might not be so active on Facebook and YouTube helps give the content reach,” says Nikhil Gandhi, vice-president and head of revenue, media channels, Disney India. Bindaas reaches around 60 million homes in the country.

Using Facebook video or YouTube for content distribution is not new. Arunabh Kumar’s The Viral Fever (TVF) used YouTube to distribute its content all this while, until the launch of it’s TVF Play platform. In fact, content producers feel the reach and viral-ity platforms like YouTube and Facebook offer makes putting out content on these much more lucrative. Both of TVF’s web-series, TVF Pitchers and Permanent Roommates, made it to Amazon IMDb’s top 250 shows, and were initially released on YouTube.

Disney does have an OTT platform that it recently launched in the UK, Disney Live, which might come to India in the future. As of now, the network will be releasing its content to the free platforms like Facebook and YouTube. In the Indian content context, Disney also does not have the width of GEC (general entertainment channel) content that peers like STAR India, Zee, Sony and Viacom18 have. It’s strength is currently in animation and live action content, and movies, not enough to fuel an independent OTT platform in a market where the other networks have launching second video-on- demand services and Netflix is trying to make inroads.

The network is still working on the time slot for the TV run but it will be in the 6 pm to 8 pm band, as 7 pm is considered the ‘sweet spot’ for youth GECs in terms of prime time viewership. A digital release also means the show can take some bold decisions in terms of content, visual and verbal.

The television version will be in accordance with the content rules of the censor board, though.

In other words, each 15-minute episode will be customised for the digital and the television viewer.

The series has got on board brand partners in the form of automobile lubricant Castrol and e-commerce company eBay. Both brands have been woven into the script and form part of the narrative, beyond only product or brand placement. For example, the lead character gets a job working at eBay, as part of the storyline. Gandhi says while brand integration is part of the revenue model for shows like this, the web-series is not an advertiser-funded programme. Other brands which might come on board will use different avenues for digital advertising.

The network plans many such shows and will have a sustained slate over the next six to 12 months, primarily in the fiction space.

Walt Disney’s 3D animated crime comedy adventure “Zootopia,” directed by Byron Howard and Rich Moore, is going strong on its fourth week, despite heavy competition from blockbusters like Warner Bros.’ “Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Deadpool.”

Scott Mendelson of Forbes reports that the animated movie about anthropomorphic animals has earned US$23.1 million (about AU$31 million) on its fourth weekend. This makes its domestic total to $240.5 million (about AU$319 million). The animated feature has also earned $456 million (approximately AU$605 million) overseas for a worldwide total of $696 million (about AU$ 924 million).

Like “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and “Jurassic World,” “Zootopia” has remained consistently strong and may be clinch that $1 billion mark globally.

Deadline notes that “Zootopia” is now the sixth-highest grossing original animated release of all-time. It has overtaken such films as “Tangled,” “Ratatouille,” “The Incredibles,” “Kung Fu Panda,” and “Big Hero 6.” However, it is yet to cross other hit movies from Disney and Pixar like “Frozen,” “The Lion King,” “Finding Nemo,” “Inside Out,” and “Up.” It hasn’t released in Japan yet.

Zootopia features the voices of Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, J.K. Simmons, Tommy Chong, Octavia Spencer, Jenny Slate, and Shakira. Its synopsis, as presented in IMDB, is as follows: “In a city of anthropomorphic animals, a rookie bunny cop and a cynical con artist fox must work together to uncover a conspiracy.”

“Deadpool” starring Ryan Reynolds is looking to cross the US$400 million mark internationally; it has made $396 million (about AU$526 million) overseas but it is yet to open in Japan on June 1. The Merc With a Mouth is the fifth biggest superhero release, according to Deadline, where its global box office amount now stands to $746 million (about AU$ 990 million), according to Boxofficemojo. It’s the first R-rated comic book movie to do so too.

Ever since its test footage leaked, “Deadpool” has enjoyed a cult following. The modestly budgeted 58 million (about AU$77 million) movie has become an unexpected hit worldwide. It would not be surprising if it reaches that $1 billion mark globally and it will expectedly make more money on home video once it is released on Blu-ray and DVD.

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No smoking in Disney movies has been a long-standing policy for the company and now they’ve extended the policy to three popular subsidiaries. It appears characters in future Marvel, Pixar and Lucasfilm productions will no longer be able to light up. This could have an affect on characters who may have been written as smokers and whose persona and identification may be altered. Disney has had the no smoking policy for some time now and the Surgeon General suggests that children who witness smoking in movies are more likely to develop the habit themselves.

“We are extending our policy to prohibit smoking in movies across the board: Marvel, Lucas, Pixar and Disney films,” Iger said, after being prompted by a critical care nurse in the crowd — who is also a Disney shareholder — during the lengthy Q&A period.

Disney will give one exception to the rule and that rule applies to historic figures depicted in their films. If a known historic figure was an avid smoker, filmmakers may depict the figure smoking. Other than that one rule, the smoking ban is in full effect across the board. The debate between fans should be interesting to read as some will most certainly praise Disney for the smoking ban, while others may argue the affect it will have on established characters (most notably in Marvel films).

Back in the early days of cartoons, smoking was a pretty normal thing to see. I remember watchingTom & Jerry, The Flintstones and other characters lighting up all the time. It was pretty normal in live action TV as well, some characters even did cigarette commercials like the one below.

It’s the earliest that Disney has ever reached the milestone.

Propelled by Zootopia and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Disney DIS 0.40% is crossing the $1 billion mark at 2016’s international box office on Friday.

It’s the earliest that Disney has ever reached the milestone. Zootopia has hit $415.9 million so far in its international release, while The Force Awakens took in about $447 million this year from foreign markets after grossing $680 million during the last two weeks of 2015.

Zootopia has also totaled $217.4 million in the U.S., leading the box office for three weekends.

Zootopia is now the second-largest movie ever in Russia, behind only Avatar, with $26.5 million. In China, the animated comedy has brought in $184.7 million and is Disney’s second-highest grossing release in that market behind Avengers: Age of Ultron.
France is the third highest international market with $26 million, followed by Germany with $19.1 million, South Korea with $18.7 million, Mexico with $15.8 million and Spain with $12.5 million.

Zootopia is launching in the U.K. this weekend. Major markets still to come include Japan on April 23.

Zootopia has totaled $633 million worldwide, while Star Wars: The Force Awakens has a worldwide total of $2.06 billion.

Disney’s The Finest Hours has taken in about $23 million so far from international markets to go along with $27 million domestically.

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Etched deep in our childhoods, there are haunting memories, tinted by the flickering, semi-darkness of a movie theatre. For some it was Snow White, for others Pinocchio or Bambi, or, more recently, Frozen. Like first loves they seem less significant as the clock ticks forward but, in more reflective moments, they can still evoke emotions.
That moment in the life of a young Andrew Millstein – now aged 55 and the president of Walt Disney Animation Studios – came when he saw Dumbo, the story of an elephant who is mocked for the size of his ears but discovers that with them he can fly. Typical for Disney fare, it is a story which celebrates what makes us different from one another.
Animations such as Dumbo and Bambi are the best kind of fairy tales, Millstein says. “There’s this sadness that you can apply to yourself and in a way it makes you start to recognise your own humanity. They also make you feel vulnerable, those are kind of dangerous emotions. [But] that’s why they last. It’s the stuff that doesn’t push you that you forget.”

In the past decade, as its parent studio has soared in commercial terms through the acquisition of Marvel (which owns Iron Man, Thor, The Avengers and other comic-book properties) and Lucasfilm (which owns the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises), Walt Disney Animation Studios has soared alongside, becoming one of the studio’s most valuable assets.

That might seem self-evident, given the studio’s birth came out of the success of four films produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures between 1937 and 1941: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia and Dumbo. (A segment in the third of those films, titled The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, featured the little rodent who would become the studio’s biggest star, Mickey Mouse.)
But there were many winters between the summers which gave Disney its biggest hits. The 1950s added Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty to the studio’s princess portfolio, but in the ensuing decades there were fewer hits, and a sense that Disney’s animation was too safe. Particularly when compared to Warner Bros animation, which was always more irreverent, and modern television animation, such as The Simpsons, which was provocative and opinionated.

It was not until the 1990s – an era now referred to as the “Disney renaissance” – that their animation studio reinvented itself commercially, with titles such as The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994) and Pocahontas (1995).
Then, in 1995 the studio partnered with Pixar on the film Toy Story, the first animated film produced wholly on computer. In 2006 Disney acquired Pixar for US$7.4 billion. The fruits of that marriage are self-evident: Pixar’s Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Cars (2006) and WALL-E (2008), and Disney’s Tangled (2010), Wreck-It Ralph (2012) and Frozen (2013).

In an era where “brand” supersedes everything else, it is interesting to define what a “Disney” film actually means, or, as Spectrum puts it to Millstein, what he means when he ends a pitch meeting with the words “it’s great, but it’s just not us”.
Disney wants films with “universal and timeless appeal … [which are] good for audiences everywhere … [and which do not] pull in an abundance of contemporary references,” he says.

“Then we want to make stories that are comedic, heartfelt, warming and challenging,” he adds. A film like the newly released Zootopia, he notes, stretches some of those rules. “Why we love it is that it pushes an expectation of what a Disney branded film is and yet it’s Disney to the core,” he says.

Mickey’s two perfectly round black ears may have given the studio its iconic logo. But its culture came from the man himself, its founder Walter Elias Disney. And though he died in 1966 – he was cremated and interred at LA’s Forest Lawn Memorial Park and not, despite a persistent urban myth, frozen for a future generation to defrost – Disney’s personality seems still to loom large over the organisation which bears his name.

Disney pursued a vision in which he saw the “studio as a salon”, Millstein says, where artists of all disciplines are assembled and encouraged to collaborate, creating a “friction, sparks, between these different disciplines. Those ideas are still really prevalent within the corporation as a whole, but also within the studio. We do innovate and we do push on each other.”

In practice, the editorial model of Walt Disney Animation Studios is a sort of collective brains trust which oversees every project, though each project remains distinctly authored. Each has a director – Frozen’s Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, Zootopia’s Byron Howard and Rich Moore and so on – but the larger pool of directors working within the studio are frequently asked to contribute to story, editing etc.

The net effect is a shared thinking which is not found elsewhere in commercial motion pictures.

“There is a sense of authorship and personality around each film related to the creative leadership of that film, but that group leans on their colleagues in ways that just doesn’t happen in live action,” Millstein says, “It starts early in development and continues all the way through the last screening.”

It may have its roots in the origin of animation itself, where frames were drawn by hand, and individual sequences and scenes spread across a large workforce. It may also be a by-product of the egos which seem more prevalent in the live-action film business. After all, there were no media reports of Elsa locking herself in her trailer. Or director’s tantrums on the set of Toy Story.

Technology has also emerged as a powerful player in the animation world, particularly since Toy Story demonstrated powerfully that you could work entirely in an artificial environment and still deliver a profound emotional impact on the audience.

Whether animation might return from its technological present to the hand-drawn past is another matter, Millstein says. “I don’t think it would ever be as black and white as that,” he says. “I think that art and technology are woven into the fabric of the studio and you can see that. Yet, we have a legacy that draws on, and continues to draw on, our hand-drawn history.”

In Zootopia, for example, there is a sensibility which comes from the studio’s “2D” legacy. “We have hand-drawn artists, 2-D artists, who are actually working with our CG artists to help with the shape language and the appeal of the shapes, and the motion,” he says.
In any conversation about the commerce of animated films, of course, there is one giant elephant in the room. (And we’re not talking about Dumbo.) As Marvel and Lucasfilm push box office totals to ever higher waterlines, no one could have imagined one little princess in a blue dress would put them all to shame.

Frozen’s success, Millstein is quick to point out, must be analysed in context. A film like Big Hero 6, for example, which followed Frozen into cinemas, could never be its equal in commercial terms. “The idea that you would have the film following Frozen perform at the same level is crazy,” he says.

“To hold yourself up to that standard is setting yourself up for failure, and it’s not fair,” he adds. “It’s not fair to ourselves as people, it’s not fair to the organisation. The good news is that I think that the company as a whole, not just animation, but the senior leadership in the studio, they’ve been around, they’re mature, they have a very realistic set of expectations.”

The mistake, he thinks, would be to try and predict where the next Frozen will fall. “You just don’t know, that’s part of the risky part of it. We didn’t know that Frozen was going to resonate the way Frozen did.”

And yet its recipe seems, in hindsight, so gloriously simple. “It has universal appeal, Elsa was an underdog and had this secret, but she also had superpowers,” Millstein says. “A kid doesn’t really differentiate between pink or blue; to a kid what resonates is her awesomeness, her courage and her superpowers. That’s what she had. That’s a good story.”

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Disney is getting into the Easter spirit!

Just head of the holiday weekend, Disney’s official fan club, D23, released a new YouTube video showing scenes from five of the company’s animated movies and shorts that contain five of its “most hidden” Easter Eggs, which mostly include cameos and references to other beloved characters.

In the new film Zootopia, which was released last month, two baby elephants are shown wearing Elsa and Anna’s outfits from Frozen. Guess they just can’t let that movie go, either!

More Easter eggs are seen in the 1961 classic 101 Dalmatians—if you blink, you may miss glimpses of dogs from Disney’s Lady and the Tramp, including the two stars.

Figment, the pink, purple and red dragon mascot of the Imagination! pavilion at Walt Disney World’s Epcot theme park, makes a cameo in 2015 movie Inside Out.

Also, the late Walt Disney himself gets a tribute in the form of an Easter Egg, in a 1938 cartoon.

 

These five hidden Easter eggs follow many others from past films, which are more apparent. Remember Rapunzel, with her cropped do’, and Flynn Rider attending Elsa’s coronation? (Their presence has spurred a Disney theory spanning multiple films.)

Or how about Belle from Beauty and the Beast walking with her nose stuck in a book in the middle of Paris in a crowd scene from The Hunchback of Notre Dame?

And somebody in Lilo & Stitch is a big fan of Mulan. (Lilo & Stitch creator Chris Sanders wrote the screenplay for Mulan).

The makeover of Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park is about to take a major step forward. Familiar facades and attractions are about to be shuttered as preparation continues for lands that will be dedicated to the “Star Wars” and “Toy Story” franchises.

The official final day is April 2 for a motorized stunt show, playground and some retail and restaurant outlets, so get there quickly if you want to stroll down memory lane on the Streets of America. If it’s been awhile — or if you’re still calling the park Disney-MGM — here is a reminder roundup of some of the attractions on their way out.

Cars land

What it is: Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show, where Hollywood Studios guests watch cars — and the cameras catching them — race through south-of-France scenery.

Why we won’t miss it: The revving tends to mess with the tranquility of the Streets of America, and we are tired of being told not to try those stunts at home. We might be a little bitter still that it ate part of the Backlot Tour and took away our happy place: the “Golden Girls” house.

Think small

What it is: Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure, an oversized playground tucked between a New York street scene and the Studio Catering Co. restaurant.

Why we’ll miss it: It’s a kids’ paradise, where they can ride ginormous ants, dodge a super-duper Super Soaker and burn off excess energy through creative playground equipment and way-bigger-than-life blades of grass. In addition, we can’t unsee that giant sniffing dog nose.

Why we won’t miss it: It’s a bit musty and zero fun for the claustrophobic.

Better shop around

What it is: Disney confirms that “some merchandise shops” and the Studio Catering Co. will close April 2. The official Disney World website warns that’s the closing date for Watto’s Grotto, a “Star Wars” store.

Why we’ll miss it: If, indeed, Youse Guys Moychindice, a small shop on the New York street is outta here, we’ll be sad because the name is so fun. The moych is pretty standard, lately with a lingering emphasis on “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

Why we won’t miss it: Grotto, which opened late last year, has always been too Tattooine Square Mall. And we remember when Writer’s Stop had an array of books (kids, ask your nana).

The end?

So if Writer’s Stop and Youse Guys aren’t on the list, what does it mean for the immediate future of the Streets, the urban backdrop in the background of countless tourist photos? On April 3, will they be barriered off like the Premiere Theater and the old Phineas/Ferb meet/greet? Disney isn’t sharing yet.

But given the rendering for the planned “Toy Story” land and the streets’ proximity to the long-standing Star Tours attraction, announced closures and construction going on backstage, doesn’t it feel like demolitions will happen soon — or maybe later — despite lack of official word?

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Walt Disney moved to Los Angeles in 1923 and settled in the Los Feliz area. Soon, he and his brother Roy opened the Disney Bros. Studio at a commercial building on Kingswell Avenue. Here’s a look at some of the notable Disney-related locales in the area.

1. Uncle Robert’s house: Upon arriving in Los Angeles, Walt Disney briefly lived in his uncle Robert’s Kingswell Avenue home, where he experimented with animation techniques in the garage. Walt later moved to nearby residences on Lyric Avenue and Woking Way.

2. Disney Bros. Studio: In October 1923, Walt Disney and his brother signed an agreement to produce a film series and then made a deal to rent space in the Kingswell Building. At first, the brothers rented the back half of a real estate firm’s office and soon expanded next door. They christened their company the Disney Bros. Studio.

3. Walt Disney Studio: After the success of the “Alice Comedies,” Walt Disney and his brother moved their company to a larger studio nearby on Hyperion Avenue that eventually accommodated more than 1,000 workers. It was torn down in 1966.

4. Walt Disney Co. headquarters: Walt Disney’s 1937 film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was a massive hit, and soon the company needed more studio space. It moved to a much larger studio facility in Burbank in 1940, and remains headquartered there today.

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The gap between a movie’s theater and home releases is shorter than ever – but this hasn’t stopped more than a quarter of a million people downloading a pirate copy of Star Wars: The Force Awakens over the last two days.

The film was released in cinemas on December 18, and will become officially available for download on April 1,and on Blu-ray and DVD four days later. However, it appears many people can’t wait until then.

Within hours of the leaked version appearing, it was one of the most-shared files on The Pirate Bay and Kickass Torrents, and there are dozens of copies posted elsewhere too.

The first was posted by the REPLiCA piracy group and, says TorrentFreak, appears to be a normal retail copy – all the previous pirated versions doing the rounds over recent weeks have been made in cinemas using handheld recorders.

Disney and Lucasfilm have been cracking down on piracy hard, with tens of thousands of takedown requests made over Star Wars: The Force Awakens alone. No screeners were made for the film – saving it from the massive leak of movies including The Hateful Eight, Spectre and The Revenant made by piracy release group Hive-CM8 at the end of last year.

Disoney even filed a takedown notice on Facebook and Twitter forcing them to pull a photograph of an action figure bought at a Walmart store and posted on a fan site.

It remains to be seen whether the leak will affect retail sales to any significant degree. The official Blu-ray is set to contain additional material, including an hour-long behind-the-scenes documentary, that’s missing from the pirated version. Many die-hard fans wouldn’t dream of living without it – or without the full set of Blu-ray disk boxes sitting proudly on their shelves.

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