Mousekingdom Blog

If you didn’t see the Super Bowl (or couldn’t watch it) last weekend you will also have missed the commercials everybody always talks about. If you missed them or want to see them again you can visit the official NFL homepage where you’ll find all commercials. For the Disney fans you’ll get to see the Prince of Persia and the Alice in Wonderland among the many other fun collection of commercials. No Walt Disney World commercial but you do get an inviting look at Universal’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

Picture Copyrights; Disney

Vero Beach is a wonderful Disney Vacation Club location where the private beach area is one of the main reasons to visit. It’s a magical place me and my family fell in love with, but I wonder if a closed or partly closed beach might have a big impact on it. Luckily this doesn’t happen a lot but for those guest visiting or planning to go in February 2010 might feel that impact as Indian River County will start working on a critical nourishment project where the beach might not be accessible at all. Members and guest will be directed to public beaches during there stay. Those that did plan a visit in early February will get a letter from Disney regarding the beach accessibility during the weekdays. On weekends the beach will be open.

If a movie makes it at the box office, a sequel isn’t far away. The same goes for Disney movies and in this case the it’s Enchanted.

Disney hopes the main cast of the first movie, Amy Adams, James Marsden, Patrick Dempsey and Susan Sarandon, will return to reprise their previous roles. Disney has hired director Anne Fletcher from “The Proposal” to direct the sequel. Jessie Nelson will write the Enchanted 2 script. Enchanted made $340 million at the box office worldwide.

Picture copyrights Disney

Depsite having received a nomination for the Razzies Joe Jonas seems to have a growing interest in becoming an actor and not “limiting” himself to his career in music. The member of all brothers’ trio The Jonas Brothers whichDisney made into the latest pop-phenomenon for the audience of The Disney Channel and Radio Disney (after they had failed to come out big when Sony released their debut album), is going to guest star in one of ABC’s big Sunday evening shows: Brothers & Sisters. Whether one likes the music of The Jonas Brothers or has any interest in the brothers it is just amazing how well the various segments of The Walt Disney Company group manage to work together to create and now sustain the success of this band and even branch it out into new markets, as “Brothers & Sisters” surely is not the regular tv-fare of the fans of the band.

Joe Jonas should be showing up in two episodes later this season as the show (airing in the USA right after Desperate Housewifes) is preparing a two-part flashback in which viewers will be traveling back in time to meet the Walker siblings as young teens. So obviously the big question was who was going to play the younger versions of the family members of the Walker family around whom the show evolves. Which brings us back to Joe Jonas… Read the rest of this entry »

Tokyo DisneySea will celebrate its tenth anniversary with a new show ”Fantasmic”. This is now confirmed by the Oriental Land Co., Ltd. The new show will premiere in April 2011 to kick of the celebration of DisneySea’s anniversary, which is on September 4th.

The picture already promises that the show will be spectacular. Looking at the brooms walking up the mountain, one can already start dreaming on how Disney will make this work. Knowing Disney, I am very confident it will look amazing. The show will take place at night in Mediterranean Harbor and will feature Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. The show will have scenes from Aladdin, Cinderella and Finding Nemo incorporated. A big battle between Mickey and a gigantic dragon will be the highlight of the show.

The new “Fantasmic” show will replace the BraviSEAmo show that is currently running.

The official announcement can be found here.

Picture copyrights Disney

You can’t say Oscars without thinking about the Razzie Awards. While Disney/Pixar with UP is going for the big one at the Oscars, the Jonas brothers will have to defend their honors at the Razzies. Although they might be less happy with the nominations. The Razzies celebrate the worst of 2009 movie year and the Jonas Brothers are nominated in two of the categories. All three Jonas brothers are nominated for Worst Actor of 2009 and “Any Two (or More)” are also nominated for Worst Screen Couple of 2009. Both nominations are for The Jonas Brothers 3-D Concert Experience. In the second category they are up against Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox OR Any Transformer. Talking about major competition…

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The OSCAR nominations have been made public and “UP” is going for the big one. “UP” has been, as was rumored before, nominated for the Best Picture award. This time the competition is even more fierce as the years before as for the first time since 1943 10 movies will have to battle it out to win the prestigious movie award. The other nominees are “Avatar”, “The Blind Side”, “District 9″, “An Education”, “The Hurt Locker”, “Inglourious Bastards”, “Precious”, “A Serious Man” and “Up in the Air”. It will not be an easy task for “UP” with a powerful list like this.

The more obvious nomination for “UP” is in the “Best Animated Feature” category. Here it is up against “Caroline”, “Fantastic Mr. Fox”, Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog” and “The Secret of Kells”.

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Once Disney bought Marvel it was to be expected Universal would be used in the same article more than once. It’s even possible to open it with the three names in the first sentence. They will be linked with each other from now one, something not everybody might like, but unavoidable. Unsurprisingly the three names in one article will refer to the difficulties the new deal of Disney buying Marvel will be for the Universal theme Park. The question of what will happen to Marvel Super Hero Island was one of the first to pop up on many forums. No worries there, as most people already know, Marvel and Universal had signed a contract about 15 years ago where Universal had the sole right to use the characters in a theme Park. This contract has now been inherited by Disney when they bought Marvel and can’t be change. And if it could be change, would they want to? (at this time). The royalties that need to be paid for the use of the licensed characters is a nice bonus for the Walt Disney Company.

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It’s that time of the year again … not Christmas time … it’s award season! This Sunday the Grammies were handed out and once again congratulations can be extended for the work on one of the soundtracks from the Disney stable. In this case the congratulations go to Michael Giacchino as the composer of the score for the Disney Pixar hit “UP” for which he was awarded with the Grammy in the category “Best Score Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media” (which is award to composer(s) for an original score created specifically for, or as a companion to, a current legitimate motion picture, television show or series or other visual media). To win this award Michael Giacchino die beat out Alexandre Desplat (The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button), Nicholas Hooper (Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, Danny Elfman (Milk) and himself (for Star Trek). But wait … there’s more … Read the rest of this entry »

It seems everyone is talking about Apple’s iPad revealed by Steve Jobs yesterday. Certainly I thought we here at the Mousekingdom Blog should too, after all that might get us an extra visitor or two who google for “iPad” My only problem: besides the connection between The Walt Disney Company and Steve Jobs I didn’t see any immediate hook for a post – and I did not want to make it too obvious that I was just looking for any reason to write about the iPad by talking about ideas I might have were the worlds of Disney could meet the iPad. So it looked as if I was out of luck … until … along came Newsarama’s Vaneta Rogers who had talked to Ira Rubenstein, executive vice president of Marvel’s Global Digital Media Group, for an article about the world of comics and the iPad … there was my connection between the iPad and the many worlds of Disney – this time in form of MARVEL the comic world giant that Disney had brought into its fold only yesterday … and an interesting connection for that! Read the rest of this entry »

Since the Chinese government and The Walt Disney Company announced that the Shanghai Disneyland project has received green light to move ahead the topic has virtually disappeared. Certainly it is mentioned together with other future projects of TWDC and is also thrown into discussions concerning the performance of Hong Kong Disneyland. But lacking any new detailed revelations about the actual design of the new theme park or visible construction on-site the various blogs and websites covering Disney had nothing to report about. After all the first-phase is only expected to finish construction in five to six years. However, thanks to China Daily (“China’s Global Newspaper”) we now have a first progress report about what is happening at the future site of the resort! Read the rest of this entry »

Want to help the people who lost everything in the disastrous earthquake in Haiti. You can do so and own a nice piece of Pixar memorabilia at the same time.

Lee Unkrich, who is currently directing Toy Story III, has set up a special auction page in cooperation with Ebay where he is selling some amazing Pixar items to help the once in need. There are Signed items including a Tom Hanks Woody Doll, original crew items and a lot more.

You can find the auction behind the link! You can also add Lee Unkrich’s twitter page where he will keep everybody informed on the auction.

Picture copyrights Disney

Analyzing the number of guests visiting the Disney theme parks around the globe and comparing it to guest numbers of competitors as well as closely scrutinizing the occupancy rates of the Disney hotels at its various resorts is already standard procedures for those interested in the performance of the Disney theme park business. In the past year Walt Disney World in Orlando has been of special interest considering the international performances of the economies, measures taken by the Americans to curtail their spending and the fact that the resort and its parks are first of all tourist driven and can’t rely on the local market to the extent Disneyland Anaheim can. Read the rest of this entry »

Disney Pixar UP continuous its successful run in the award race leading up to the OSCARS. The latest award it can add to its growing collection: The Producers Guild of America (PGA) Producer of the Year 2010 Award in Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures for Jonas Rivera. Congratulations!

Congratulations also to John Lasseter who was awarded by PGA the 2010 David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Motion Pictures as reported by Deadline Hollywood. Read the rest of this entry »

Click on the small picture to see a full size version of the Fantasyland 3D model. (via Stitch Kingdom). Work on this monster project should start soon and a first phase is planned to open somewhere in 2012 with 2013 being the target date for the expansion to be ready.