Monsters, Inc. the Ride, coming to Disney
July 21, 2008
From JimHillmedia:
Disney’s Hollywood Studios is actually getting the attraction that theme park enthusiasts have been itching for ever since “Monsters, Inc.” opened back in November of 2001. DHS will be soon be home to an inverted coaster that recreates the Door Hangar sequence from that Pete Docter film.
This family-friendly attraction will be housed inside of Soundstage One. Though — in order to queue up for this ride — WDW Guests will first have to go around to the backside of this building and then enter through the old Jim Henson Creature Shop.
Here, they’ll find an elaborate recreation of the Monsters, Inc. lobby. With Ceilia (You know? Mike Wazowski’s one-eyed, snake-haired girlfriend?) working behind the reception desk. Given that this attraction will be set in the post-film world (After monsters have learned that laughter is 10 times more powerful than screams), Monsters, Inc. is holding an open house today. Actually inviting humans in the Monster world to come tour their energy-gathering facility.
Speaking of energy-gathering … As they make their way through the queue, Disney World visitors will periodically encounter scream / laugh cannisters with funnels sticking up out of them. These Guests will then be encouraged to scream / laugh into these funnels. Which will cause the sides of these cannisters to light up and reveal how much energy was just gathered.
As they make their way up to the attraction’s load area, these WDW visitors will learn that this Open House is all Mike Wazowski’s idea. That — along the route that their coaster is supposed to travel through the Door Hangar — this wiley one-eyed monster has placed even more scream / laugh cannisters. Which will then collect all of the energy that these humans produce as they scream & laugh their way through this attraction.
‘Wall-E’ Gives Glimpse of Product Placement’s Future
July 18, 2008
From ADage:
In Disney Pixar’s new movie, “Wall-E,” the female heroine is a shiny all-white robot with no seams or overt buttons showing. Remind you of anything? Actually, it brings to mind most of the Apple product line.
But unlike many movies showing actors gulping from branded soda cans and making calls on cellphones with long logo shots, Apple’s “Wall-E” appearance isn’t what most would deem product placement. And it might well be the model of the future.
‘Almost indoctrinating’
Apple products only physically appear in “Wall-E” a few times — an iPod that re-projects a favorite movie, the sound of the Mac startup tone signaling that Wall-E, the titular robotic romantic lead, has fully recharged via solar panels, and one-button mice scurrying around a garbage dump. However, there is a less obvious, but still noticeable Apple influence that runs throughout the film.
“My first thought when I watched the movie with my kids and I heard that Mac boot tone and the whole audience laughed … was that it’s so subtle, it’s almost indoctrinating,” said Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey. “That 600 years from now there’s nothing of value on the Earth, but there’s the Mac boot tone.” Abram Sauer, a freelance writer who pens the annual product-placement awards for brandchannel.com, said the whole film could serve as a model for the future.
“People talk about how products and brands will sponsor movies … that’s what’s going to happen. But Apple has already done that here without being directly involved. This is what we would use as a great example of how to sponsor a movie,” he said. “I would call it product homage. And that is way more valuable than product placement. It doesn’t just reinforce a single Apple product, it reinforces Apple’s entire design approach from MacBook to iPod to iPhone.”
Filmgoers Wild For ‘Wall-E’ And ‘Wanted’
June 28, 2008
Sources tell me that very early North American box office numbers show that Disney / Pixar’s Wall-E took in $23M Friday from 3,992 theaters for what should be high $60sM opening weekend including the Saturday matinee bump. This means Wall-E is big, but maybe not the biggest Pixar (which was The Incredibles at $70.5M). Disney is looking for a Best Picture Oscar nomination for the pic, possible with 100% great reviews from top critics and even rival studios bigwigs gushing about the pic: “It’s just adorable and smart and interesting. It has more character development and emotion than any movie I’ve seen this year.” In the No. 2 place, Universal’s Angelina Jolie/James McAvoy starrer Wanted debuted to $18.5M Friday from 3,175 venues for what should be a bigger than expected $50+M weekend. (The studio only expected $35+M.) “In terms of comps, that would be an extraordinary result for an R-rated summer action movie,” a source tells me. - from Nikki
Where’s WALL*E? Not at the Disney Store…!?
June 17, 2008
Exclusive: We’re in New York this week. More on that later….
However, we did play a visit to the Mouse’s flagship store in New York, the Disney Store on Park Avenue. There, in the window, was a huge poster for WALL*E. Sweet, I thought, let me pick up some little WALL*E gadget…
So I entered the store. Past the Princess stuff. Past Miley Cyrus and High School Musical junk….
Ok, perhaps the second floor. More discounted crap, Pirates, Enchanted… But no WALL*E?!
The third floor, maybe?! Just over priced Disney prints and collectables. WTF, so I finally stopped and asked a busy employee. “Where’s WALL*E?!” The Disney employee shrugged his shoulders and moved on… Wha - huh?! Pixar’s WALL*E is gonna be huge — and there’s NOTHING TO BUY at the flagship Disney Store?
I took the elevator down to the first floor. Dejected. Sad… I asked another clerk, “anything WALL*E?” Nope, I was told. But soon.
Talk about missing out on an opportunity. I don’t think they know how to sell this movie, which rocks BTW, and didn’t expect it to have merchandising legs. Wake up, get WALL*E toys, t-shirts, buttons, etc., in the stores ASAP, while the buzz is there — not after the fact (like with Narnia and Pirates).
No WALL*E. :(
(Posted via mobile, sorry for any typos, whatever…)
Disney.com to stream full-length pics
June 11, 2008
The Mouse House has begun streaming full-length movies for free on Disney.com.
Pics including “Finding Nemo,” “Monsters, Inc.,” “The Princess Diaries 2″ and “Freaky Friday” will be available on the site for one week each, following their ABC broadcast on “Wonderful World of Disney” this summer.
At this point, advertising is limited to a short pre-roll spot and contextual ads on Disney.com, but the Mouse House plans to add more spots as it expands its online video offerings.
Disney sells the same pics for digital downloads on sites including iTunes, but those offerings are permanent and ad-free. All the pics have had their DVD bows, lessening concerns about cannibalization.
- From Variety
Andrew Stanton and Pixar confirm John Carter of Mars
June 7, 2008
Andrew Stanton personally confirmed for me and others attending today’s roundtable discussion in Toronto that he is currently writing the film version of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars for Pixar.
The disclosure came at the end of the short, but extremely enjoyable, discussion (excerpts of which will be published here soon), when a writer from Suite101.com asked about Stanton’s next project, to which Stanton mentioned (not too loudly) ‘John Carter of Mars’.
Doubting what I’m hearing, I interject, “What is that?” “John Carter of Mars, Stanton replies.” “You’re confirming John Carter? Are you serious?” At this point, I turn my tape recorder back on, “…say that on tape!”, I tell him. Stanton: “I am writing John Carter of Mars right now.”
- From here
WALL-E Reviews are coming in… Pixar has done it again. “This Century’s E.T.!”
June 4, 2008
“Okay, my girlfriend ROCKS. I saw Wall-E two nights ago at its wrap party, and it’s just wonderful. It’s honestly funny, moving and exciting, and Wall-E itself (himself?) is adorable and endearing. It’s a great, great movie. Also Presto had me crippled with laughter. Y’all are in for a treat. I can’t wait to see it again, and I never want to see something again right away.” Read more
NY Times: Disney and Pixar, The Power of the Prenup
May 31, 2008
IN April, the Walt Disney Company summoned movie theater executives for a rare audience before its reigning king of animation, John Lasseter. A co-founder of Pixar and director of “Toy Story,” Mr. Lasseter was unveiling the roster of films that an aligned Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios planned to release over the next four years.
Walking onstage wearing one of his trademark Hawaiian shirts — this one with yellow and green palm trees — Mr. Lasseter was greeted by giggles and pointing from a smattering of audience members.
“What did you think I’d wear?” he asked amid the titters. A business suit and a pair of mouse ears, most likely.
When Disney bought its rival, Pixar, in 2006 for $7.4 billion, many people assumed the deal would play out like most big media takeovers: abysmally. The worries were twofold: that either Disney would trample Pixar’s esprit de corps (turning Mr. Lasseter into a drone, chanting “Hi Ho” en route to Mickey’s animation mines) or that Pixar animators would act like spoiled brats and rebuke their new owner.
Both companies had a history of acrimony, and Robert A. Iger, the new chief executive of Disney, was a mystery. Could he manage the megawatt personalities Pixar would bring into Disney’s fold? Some analysts, investors and media pundits also questioned the hefty price Disney paid for a small studio that released only one movie a year.
But two years into the integration of Pixar — and as the company rolls out “Wall-E,” a risky love story about robots that is estimated to cost at least $180 million — the merger is notable for how well it’s faring. Indeed, in an industry where corporate marriages often create internal warfare (Paramount and DreamWorks SKG are the most prominent example) Disney and Pixar have found a way to make it work.
“Most acquisitions, particularly in media, are value-destroying as opposed to value-creating, and that certainly has not turned out to be the case here,” said David A. Price, author of a newly published book from Knopf, “The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company.”
The smooth ride — so far, at least — also seems to be pleasing Wall Street, where grumbling about Pixar’s price tag has died down. Disney’s stock has climbed 28 percent since its 52-week low on Jan. 22, in large part because of investor confidence that the company can overcome a difficult economy by leveraging Pixar’s computer-generated characters across its vast empire. In recent months, Disney’s shares have significantly outperformed those of most of its competitors.
- From NYTimes
Exclusive: John Lasseter, Disney, Fires Brittany Murphy. Mae Whitman is the new voice of Tinker Bell!
May 31, 2008
Oops, Brittany Murphy and Disney…. Don’t look at the below picture, which introduced Brittany Murphy as the OFFICIAL voice of Tinker Bell. In 2006, during a major media PR blitz, Disney rolled out the red carpet for the then hot actress. Flash forward to 2008, as John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney and Pixar, fires alleged cokehead Murphy and gives the Tinker Bell voice job to Mae Whitman. Read more
The heroine of Pixar’s new release, Wall-E, was born from an iPod
May 13, 2008
“I wanted Eve to be high-end technology - no expense spared - and I wanted it to be seamless and for the technology to be sort of hidden and subcutaneous,” Andrew Stanton, Wall-E’s director, told Fortune. “The more I started describing it, the more I realized I was pretty much describing the Apple playbook for design.” It is, of course, not the first time a product has inspired a film character - think of the murderous HAL 9000 robot in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” based loosely on big IBM mainframes of the day.
But it may be the first time a character was based on a true corporate sibling. A call from Stanton to Jobs in 2005 resulted in Johnny Ive, Apple’s behind-the-scenes design guru, driving across the San Francisco Bay to Pixar’s converted warehouse headquarters to spend a day consulting on the Eve prototype. Stanton said that it was a “lovefest” with Ive, but that the notoriously tight-lipped design wizard offered few specific modifications. “Apple is so proprietary and so secretive that he couldn’t even really allude to where the future of technology was going,” says Stanton. “The most he could do is nod his head to the things we said we wanted to do.”
- From Fortune
Animatronic WALL-E robots coming to Disney parks
April 28, 2008
Screamscape sources have confirmed that we will see a Wall-E mobile animatronic character running around just in time for the movie’s release. Wall-E is said to be quite cute and stands about 3 feet tall. From the sound of things Disney has elected to build a Wall-E for each coast.
Via Screamscape
Pics and news on Disney’s Bolt, Rapunzel and more from Pixar…
April 17, 2008
We got a lot to talk about in this report. For the first half I focused on the Pixar side of the presentation. Since then Disney has released a ton of images… mostly just title fonts, but there are a few pieces of art from the actual movies. I’m going to pepper the Disney Animation art throughout and then, at the end, I’ll throw in all the Pixar pics, which includes looks at UP, NEWT and the CARS 2 title logo.
Read more at AICN
New Wall-E Featurette
April 16, 2008
First official image from Pixar’s Up
April 9, 2008
Upcoming Disney/Pixar Movies
April 8, 2008
The first Disney digital 3-D movie for release is “Bolt,” the story of a dog of the same name who thinks he has superhero powers. John Travolta gives voice to Bolt while hit teen singer/actress Miley Cyrus is voicing Bolt’s owner Penny in the movie, due to open on November 26. “Up,” the story of an unlikely 78-year-old adventurer and his 8-year-old sidekick, is due to be released on May 29, 2009. “Toy Story” and “Toy Story 2″ are due to be re-released in digital 3-D on October 2, 2009 and February 12, 2010 respectively, while “Toy Story 3″ is due to hit screens on June 18, 2010.
Read more
Disney and Pixar going to Mars
March 17, 2008
Pixar Animation Studios is getting ready to put its first really-for-real live action project into production. Don’t believe me? Okay. Then check out the batch of domain names that the Walt Disney Company registered this past Friday:
* JOHNCARTERANDTHEGODSOFMARS.COM etc
… suggest that what Andrew Stanton supposedly told the staff at Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. back in October of last year is true. That Disney / Pixar definitely is gearing up to do a trilogy of films based on the “John Carter of Mars” books.
Via Jim Hill
Toy Star Mania Sneak Peek
March 16, 2008
What happens when Toy Story meets Disney Hollywood Studios? See below to watch a MSNBC video as they go behind the scenes on the new Pixar Florida attraction.
Secrets of Pixar’s inner circle
March 12, 2008
For all the success, however, there’s very little room atop Pixar’s food chain. While live-action movie studios might crank out more than a dozen movies annually, the digital animation company built by Apple’s Steve Jobs barely makes a film a year — and had no features at all in 2005 or 2002. What’s more, all Pixar movies so far have been directed by an inner circle of animation all-stars: John Lasseter (”Toy Story,” “A Bug’s Life,” “Toy Story 2″ and “Cars”), Brad Bird (”The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille”), Andrew Stanton (”Finding Nemo” and summer’s forthcoming “Wall-E”) and Pete Docter (”Monsters, Inc.” and 2009’s “Up”).
Some of Pixar’s limited future directing slots already have been claimed. Longtime company editor Lee Unkrich is making 2010’s “Toy Story 3.” Sound designer Gary Rydstrom, who directed the Pixar short “Lifted,” and Brenda Chapman, a Disney and DreamWorks alumna who had a writing credit on “Cars,” also are developing Pixar movies.
In other words, Pixar director slots are few and far between. Which brings us to the 36-year-old Hayward, who departed Pixar’s Emeryville, Calif., campus in late 2002 and is making his directorial debut on “Horton,” a co-production of 20th Century Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios.
Via LAtimes