Big props go to the group of 50 Disney VoluntEARs who combined their excitement for Walt Disney Animation’s latest film with their enthusiasm for volunteer work by building a “Wreck-It Ralph” CANstruction for Second Harvest Food Bank in Central Florida. At the end of the… Read More »Cast Members Build Wreck-It Ralph out of Canned Food for a Good Cause
Disney Animation has released one more clip from Wreck-It Ralph as the movie is set to debut in theaters everywhere tomorrow. This one features Fix-it Felix Jr as he encounters Sergeant Calhoun for the first time and setting off one of the movie’s sub-plots: Reviewers… Read More »Disney’s Wreck-it Ralph in Theaters Today
Halloween is over and as fast as the fall decor goes into storage, the winter decorations are being added to the park. Miles of garland, glitter, twinkling lights and ribbon transform Walt Disney World Resort into a winter wonderland during the holiday season. Here’s a… Read More »The Numbers Behind Disney World’s Christmas Transformation
A little less than two years ago when Disneyland was promoting the new Star Tours attraction, they came out with this very funny video of Darth Vader on vacation at Disneyland. With the big news that dropped on Tuesday, that video has been updated and… Read More »Darth Vader, you’ve just joined the Disney family, what are you going to do next?
For the past few years Disneyland has been running “Every Role A Starring Role”, a periodic video series where it looks at cast members and exactly what their jobs entail at the parks. I don’t know about you, but I’ve found it fascinating. The latest… Read More »Disneyland Profiles Cast Members at Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
Editor: Please welcome Brad Phillips whose In The Life of a Nerd blog we linked to back in February for its review of Disney’s gaming efforts. Today he sent us this analysis of the Lucasfilm deal:
When Disney acquired Marvel in 2009, there were several issues. Many people saw the potential of the deal, but there were problems such as Disney’s perceived lack of knowledge with non-family films and the rights to characters being tied up elsewhere. With this week’s acquisition of Lucasfilm, Disney will find itself in a similar situation. In fact, many parallels can be drawn between the two deals.
First off, Marvel fans were in an uproar after the announcement was made over three years ago. What would Disney do to their beloved franchises? Would they become Disney-fied? Less mature? Now think about Star Wars. This is a franchise beloved by millions. Hardcore fans are concerned about where the franchise will head under Disney’s control.
When you look at Marvel, Disney not only acquired the franchises and characters, but the people who knew them best. The people who worked on the films and comics are still with the company and Disney has largely left them in control of Marvel. This has led to consistent storylines and great films. Lucasfilm will be more of the same. The people who have worked on Star Wars over the past 30 years or so are still in charge of the franchise. In other words, Star Wars is in good hands. Disney isn’t starting from scratch, they do have general plans for films 7-9, plans that Lucasfilm were already at work on. Disney would be wise not to scrape those plans.
Secondly, When Disney bought Marvel; rights to some of the biggest franchises were tied up with other Hollywood studios. Paramount was in control of distribution for Iron Man and The Avengers. Disney had to repurchase those rights in order to self-distribute the films. Even now, Spider-man film rights still lie with Sony, the Fantastic-Four and X-Men with Fox, and theme park rights with Universal Studios. Disney has made no attempts to get those rights back, mostly because of the expense of getting them back. Read More »With Lucasfilm Acquisition, Disney Has Itself Another Marvel-sized Problem