Mousekingdom Blog

It will be to nobodies surprse that pirates of the Caribbean will be the highest grossing movie of all, time breaking all previous records during an opening weekend. There is only one question… with how much doubloons.

Most industry observers agree that “At World’s End” should break boxoffice records this weekend. It’s just a matter of how many and by how much. (Hollywood Reporter)

With the weekend coming to its end we will get the results soon and after that it will be interesting to see who will be able to catch the Pirates record…

I have just returned from my local movie complex where today was the first screening of “The Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End” movie.

While I don’t want to give away anything for those still having to see the movie here is my review of the movie without (to many) spoilers that would give away the main story…

Darker; The third part in this trilogy is a lot darker then the first one. While the first two movies put our pirates and friends in fun situations, the darker settings and story is enlightened with witty and catchy jokes. They turn the style around, but it really works well.

(more…)

Robert Iger spoke to some journalist this week about the Theme Parks. With the housing issue going on (The Anaheim Coalition delivers 21,243 signatures to fight the council decision) Igor had some answers prepared regarding the area near Disneyland.

Walt Disney Co. believes Anaheim should have more affordable housing — but not as close to Disneyland as some local officials and developers propose, Chief Executive Robert Iger said Monday. Speaking before a group of journalists at Disneyland Hotel, Iger called the theme park the “best neighbor Anaheim has ever had.” (LA Times)

(more…)

Flying into Orlando airport visitors will not miss the awesome posters inviting them to come and visit the Star Wars Weekends between 1 June and 24 June at the Disney-MGM studios in Walt Disney World. You’ll get to see pictures from Yoda lifting baggage, Darth Vader taking of his shoes, Darth Maul helping airplanes to land using Lightsabers, Tie Fighters docked at the gates and my favorite; Boba Fett bringing in Han Solo in Carbonite. I wonder if he had to pay more for the extra weight…

(more…)

Did you notice that I didn’t talk about any rides so far on this trip report? I said it before and I’ll say it again; it is not all about rides, a Disney park is so much more. Sure we did rides! It is always fun to do Big Thunder Mountain a couple of times, Phantom Manor is a must do (being my favorite ride experience) and getting 739000 points on Buzz did add to the fun. But there is so much more. Even my 7 year old son doesn’t mind exploring the other things Disney has to offer besides rides. I think this was a trip where he did less rides then he ever did in any previous visit, still never was he bored once!

With the celebration being the main interest of this trip we got our attention to the Parade, and made sure that we visited each and every shop to see all the new 15th anniversary stuff. Also some good dinner arrangements and visiting some shows (like the Lion King and another visit to see the awesome stunt show) took over most of the time we spend in Disneyland Resort Paris this time around.

(more…)

The “Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage” in Disneyland will open on 11 June to the general public but some ceremonies have already taken place…

Navy Vice Admiral John G. Morgan and Disneyland Resort President Ed Grier pour water from the East Australian current into the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage lagoon.

The move followed a ceremonial re-commissioning of the Disneyland submarine fleet in Anaheim on Monday. (Mickey News)

Picture copyrights Disney (via Mickey News)

15 candles on the cake, or should we say on the castle. You could already see some pictures of the Castle with the decorations in a previous entry, but I still have to give you our trip report on the little celebration that take place in front of the castle.

Candleabration is the celebration taking place in front of the castle to celebrate 15 years of Disneyland Resort Paris. For the duration of this festivities the candles placed on the castle will be lit up… during day time!…

(more…)

A Japanese trailer for the new Disney – Pixar movie “Ratatouille” can be found online. The trailer includes almost a full scene of the movie where Remy (the rat) and Linguini, the “want to be cook” kitchen help meet and make a deal to help each other out fulfilling their dreams.

This is yet another fun trailer for a movie that looks to become a real winner. The trailer is in English but for those wanting to test their japans skill can read the Japanese subtitles.

Avoid the trailer if you don’t like spoilers!

So you are watching TV, watching a Disney travel show and then all you have to do is press those buttons and you can sit back, wait for Disney to call you and you can book the dream holiday you want.

Sounds easy enough…

…and it will be for about nine million subscribers on Time Warner Cable Inc. and Cablevision Systems Corp to start with, and with more cable systems going live once they activate the interactive feature.

(more…)

The First Coast News website has two interesting videos about the Utilidors (short for “utility corridor”) in Walt Disney World underneath the Magic Kingdom.

Trying to keep the real world away from the magical world, pictures of the Utilidor are scarce making this a special treat for those Disney fans that have not been able to visit the Utilidors in “The World” (like me)

You’ll get to see some of the hallways, the arrows and signs they use, Cast Members talking about their job in the Utilidors and more.

The tunnel under the Magic Kingdom is set up as a loop that goes around the outside edge of the park, plus a wide passageway that leads down the middle. Scattered all over the park are stairwells and elevators that lead up to the public areas. (First Coast News)

The second movie clip has some extra footage of the costume department.

It’s the largest walk-in closet on Earth: the Costuming building outside the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. Row after row of clothing racks, labeled by category and sorted by size, stretch off into the distance inside the vast building (First Coast News)

Are you a Disney fan and collector? How about Donald Duck? If you want to expand your collection this is the time to do it. Over 1200 unique Donald Duck items are being sold in an online Ebay auction at this moment. Some items are from 1936.

There are only 5 days left to bid on this awesome Donald Collection. Nice gesture is the 10% of whatever it makes will go to the Red Cross.

Picture copyrights internetsalesservice

Pictures, reports and even a video have been circulating on the internet about the fake Disney park “Shijingshan” in Beijing.

A banner over the entrance said, “Disney is too far, so please come to Shijingshan.” (Biz Yahoo)

Visitors get to see a collection of Disney faces and Characters like Mickey, Minnie, Donald and some of the princesses. The managers of the park have other views on this.

Take our Cinderella as an example. The face of Disney’s Cinderella face is European, but ours is a Chinese. She looks like a young Chinese country girl”

Really? They want to get away what that?

(more…)

OK - the Disney community is known for its lightning fast spreading of rumors and news … but unless I have been asleep for several months, this time something fell through the cracks. At least I can’t explain otherwise, that as far as I can see, noone is talking about the story that DailyBulletin.com released already on April 28.

It starts out rather uninteresting for most Disney/Pixar-fans with some general talk about the upcoming summer-feature “Ratatouille” and why it is different from all the other talking critters CG-movies. Then it gets more interesting when it says ”Bird was planning to follow “The Incredibles” with a live-action film.” But this had been a topic among Disney-fans already before. Where it really gets interesting is at the very end of the story, where it says: “As for that live-action film (possibly an entry from the “John Carter of Mars” series?), Bird says it’s next, and it will be for Pixar. ‘The company is evolving into a place where all kinds of movies, not just animated ones, can come out,’ Bird says.”

Now that - to me - is news. Pixar going to enter live-action movie making?? I had the impression that The Walt Disney Company was currently trying to differentiate its brands more strongly by concentrating on certain mediums, say CG-movies at Pixar, classic 2-D-animation (in the future once again) at Walt Disney (Feature) Animation etc. In fact weren’t they planning to actually get rid of some of their studio labels for live-action material?? And now this?!

(more…)

The Tokyo Disney Resort has been very successful in Japan; high attendance for the resort and Disneysea being an Imagineering success are proof of that. Oriental Land Company is the owner of the parks (paying royalties to Disney) and they are the once responsible for the success. Now they are looking into the possibility to add a third gate in Japan.

Although one might expect a third gate to open near the existing resort rumors indicate it might be located somewhere else. The Oriental Land Company is looking at one possible area in Southern Honshu. There is no indication how far away from the main park the new gate would be located. One thing is for sure; with the amazing DisneySea the imagineers have a very high standard to go for, this promising a superb looking third gate for the future. But remember, this is a first rumor and nothing is for sure as long as Disney and the Oriental Land Company don’t give out an official announcement.

source; Screamscape. Copyrights Picture; Map-of-Japan.org

Gore’s sick of pirates. If I wrote a scene that had to be shot on water, he’d run the other way.” (Jim Hill Media)

Looks like Gore Verbinski is done with pirates (although this doesn’t come from his mouth) while Johnny Depp would happily do some more follow up movies (but only if Gore Verbinski will direct it).

For more read the Jim Hill Media article.

From May 4 to June 30, 2007, Adventureland has been transformed into Pirateland celebrating the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. To support the Pirates at Hong Kong Disneyland Chow Yun Fat made a visit.

Chow Yun Fat, who plays the pirate Sao Feng in the upcoming movie Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End, visited Hong Kong Disneyland to experience the totally new Pirate Takeover.

When Chow Yun Fat came aboard the Pirates franchise (you get it, came aboard – Sorry for the silliness) I totally geek-ed out. Chow Yun Fat is my favorite actor and has been for a very long time. All you Disney fans, if you like his acting take the time to find some of his other great work. I know some don’t like to watch movies that are not taped in English, but give it a chance. Some of his best work include; “Hard Boiled” (my favorite), “The Killer”, “God of Gamblers”, “A Better Tomorrow” and “Crouching tiger, Hidden Dragon”, however there are a lot more. (Warning, the list above might be rated, check if the movie is appropriate for the persons watching them)

Pictures copyrights PRNewsFoto/Hong Kong Disneyland

All of us have already endured the special treatment as “captive audience”, meaning part of an audience / guest group which - for what ever reason - is bound to consume certain products or services in a set boundary or environment. Say on a trade fair, on the concourse of an airport behind the security check, … and we all have learned (the hard way) that pricing of e.g. food items in these areas clearly reflect that the customers are part of a “captive audience” and thus willing to pay a premium or unable to avoid paying a premium if they want to get a drink, snack, meal etc. No big news here. Obviously the same applies to theme or amusement parks, especially if we are talking about parks that are part of resorts such as Walt Disney World or the Disneyland Resort Paris, where (with very few exceptions such as the ESSO gas station or the shops in the train station) even the sales locations outside the gates are sort of seperated from the regular market.

In the mind of the general public in the meantime a hard rule as developed basically saying: ”theme park guests” = “captive audience” = higher prices for e.g. snacks. Combine that with the general perception of Disneyland Resort Paris in Europe as “expensive” and you have numerous potential guests who turn down a visit to DLRP based on not real pricing but assumed or expected pricing. But is DLRP really charging a premium wherever possible??

(more…)

Remember the Volvo car you could win when Pirates of the Caribbean II came out? With the release of Pirates III a new chance for all the hunters to get their hands on a key for a Volvo XC90 has come.

Together with 50.000 doubloon a key has been sunk into the ocean this time. To find the key you will have to solve 4 puzzles that you can find on the Volvo “The Hunt” website and a 5th puzzle that can be found on the map you need to pick up from your local Volvo Dealer.

This map will be crucial to solve all the puzzles and to find your way to the treasure… Good luck, and feel free to share your adventures here.

Picture Copyrights Volvo

Disneyland Resort Paris celebrates 15 years of magic and I had high hopes for some good collectibles. On my last trip, after I left the parks, I was a little unhappy about the missing merchandise. I was willing to part with some of my money, but there was really nothing new that catch my eye. Lucky enough (although my bank account might have other views on that) this time around I wasn’t disappointed!

Special 15 anniversary merchandise everywhere; and some of it was really great. Not only could I find enough to bring home, I even had to pass on some things for next time.

(more…)