With a few exceptions (noteably international phenomenons LOST and Desperate Housewives) the numerous shows on Disney’s network ABC are not really a topic we blog about regularly here. But this time the news is so surprising that I just had to forward it, after reading it on the German website Quotenmeter.de: the comedy series “According to Jim” starring Jim Belushi will return for another season on ABC!
In an unfortunate event a 14 year old Spanish girl died yesterday while riding Rock’n’Roller coaster in the Walt Disney Studios in Disneyland Resort Paris. When the ride vehicle returned to the station the girl was found unconscious by her friends. A medical team tried to revive her but by the time an ambulance arrived at the scene the girl was death. The cause of this regrettable death is unknown at this moment. There is no prove of mechanical failure of the rollercoaster but the rollercoaster will remain closed until the investigation has been concluded. An autopsy is planned for today.
Our thoughts are with the family.
f you want to keep up to date on this tragedy visit: dlp.info
Disney has a new site live for the new Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage Attraction in Disneyland. There are some real fun things on there like a construction timelapse video, info on the Nemo Dream Mobile that is going around the US, a big section on how the ride was made and a history part including some footage of the old subs.
The web is real fun and gives some nice background information. I love it when Disney shares this kind of stuff with their fans. I understand that they like to keep most of the info a little bit of a secret (to not spoil the experience), but sharing just enough builds up the anticipation for future visitors.
Picture copyrights; Disney
Not being a big fan of the whole torrent environment, I am even less a fan of the illegal copies you can find on there. Ratatouille already founds it way on the system; however they have a bad copy taped with a camera from some movie screen (seem to, as I did not download it to see it for myself). I really don’t understand why people would want to do this or even share this. Watching these bad (and illegal) copies don’t do the movie any justice and will never give you the experience as you would have in the cinema.
Making these copies (or copies from DVD, etc) is theft; Period. Please don’t support this kind of behavior and save for a cinema ticket or for the original Disney DVD’s. The experience is so much better, and you’re not doing illegal stuff.
Info via Dark Horizons
Disney has shown a preview of their movie “The Secret of the Magic Gourd” in China. The movie is made for the Asian market, using an Asian book…
The plot of the live-action, Mandarin-language update of the 1958 children’s book classic by Zhang Tianyi reflects some of modern China’s biggest aspirations. (Hollywood Reporter International)
But Disney fans need no worry as an English version is very likely to happen…
After the mainland, Disney plans to take “Gourd” to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. Might it be dubbed in English? “The film will travel, but we have to get the China part right first” (Hollywood Reporter International)
A 2 minute trailer can be found here
Picture copyright Disney
As a parent, reading things like this makes me very angry. Your first priority as a parent is your child. If that means you can’t ride an attractions; then there is always another time. What you can’t or shouldn’t do just to be able to visit the attraction is leave your child behind, waiting outside. Unfortunately some parents seam to have other ideas on this and have no problem leaving their child in a stroller in the sun while visiting the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction.
A mother and father are facing child neglect charges after deputies say they left their young child in the hot sun at Disney World. (Central Florida News)
Unfortunately things like this are not “one offs”. I’ve seen a couple running to Big Thunder Mountain once, both running into the queue line, leaving their kid outside the gates. The Cast Member, standing there, jaw’s dropped right open (as did mine). They didn’t return or say anything to the kid; they just ran on to ride the coaster…
Picture Source and copyrights crehe29
Only recently fans had to deal with the closing notice for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast on Broadway and now the next closing notice is rolling in … Sure for many occasional theater goers Disney Theatrical has been one the role - thanks to the selective memory of the public for many occasional theater goers Disney Theatrical still wears the mantle of the infalible who score a hit with every project. Upon closer inspection though, Disney Theatrical had had its fair share of not so successful productions as well … coming to my mind are Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (world premiere in Berlin, long closed, never made it to any other location), On the Record (a touring show which originally had been expected to make it to the Broadway but never did), Aida (which touted as the next big thing after The Lion King fell out of favor with theater patrons rather fast on Broadway and never made it to the West End, but did open in the Netherlands and Germany at least) … and now: Tarzan.
Great news for all Disney animation fans; there will be no more “make a quick buck” direct on DVD sequels anymore. It’s back to quality originals.
In a major strategy shift, the Walt Disney Co. said Friday that it will stop making lucrative direct-to-DVD sequels of such classic animated films as “Cinderella,” a move that reflects the growing influence of former Pixar Animation executives John Lasseter and Steve Jobs, who once called the films “embarrassing.” (The News Tribune)
Most fans will agree that this is great news. Let us hope that the future of Disney animation will bring us many new classics like we had in the past. Nobody will miss out on yet another Cinderella spin of. Two thumbs up from me!
(But if you are looking for a Disney DVD, please use this link and support our site – Server space doesn’t come for free – than you so much 
)
Picture copyrights Disney
A man thought that after a couple of drinks he would become such a good swimmer that he had to proof it trying to swim in the lake at Downtown Disney. When he could not make it back to the shore he needed to be rescued by the Reedy Creek Fire Department.
While he tried to pull a story that there is a second man in the lake, the truth came out soon enough that he was alone and tried to cover up his stupidity.
You can see the news video on WESH
Last week Monday I didn’t know I was going to be at Disneyland Resort Paris, 2 days later, on Wednesday, I had everything planned and ready to visit the Press event of the new Toon Studios area at the Walt Disney Studios. As I have been ‘recruited’ to be the principal research assistant for Simon and Susan Veness ‘A Brit’s Guide to Disneyland Resort Paris’ book, I was able to attend the big opening special event party. It would be wrong calling this a working weekend as it was way too much fun for that, but I did already send back my full report to Simon, showing my dedication to the job. I can only imagine how much work it is to write and publish a guide, so I am even more thankful that I got to do the fun part.
So how did the weekend go? Here some of the highlights of the trip, the event and of course the rides and the Toon Studios itself.
Who would you pick for artist that most inspires you? Art Award asked and got their answer. For young adults ages 18 to 25 Walt Disney came on top.
“The results show that young people are inspired by a range of artists who they feel are relevant to their lives today” (BBC news)
While he leaves Leonardo da Vinci behind him in that age group (4th place) he can’t win in the “all ages” list. There they literally switch places and also has Bob Dylan (2nd) and Andy Warhol (3rd) in front of him.
Imagine working for 700 years before you find out what you where meant for:
WALL•E, a robot, spends every day doing what he was made for. But soon, he will discover what he was meant for.
See the Teaser in HD here
Picture copyrights Disney
It only took 20 days for Pirates of the Caribbean; at Worlds End to pass the $500 million mark. The world wide success is helping to get to these monster earnings. For example opening day in China was good for $1.3 million.
The Pirates at China don’t come without an extra price though. To be able to show the movie in China the price of “censorship” needs to be paid. I could fill a whole blog telling how I feel about censorship or maybe it is just an angry reaction to the fact that it was parts of Chow Yun Fat role that had been cut. He was partly cut out of the movie because they didn’t like how the Chinese pirate was portrayed on screen…
Picture Copyrights; Disney
What if Mufasa was Darth Vader? Or what would happen if the Muppets would invade the world of the pirates?
You can find out on YouTube where you will find a trailer of the Pirates of the Caribbean; At Worlds End that includes a bunch of the Muppets and a great little video where Darth “Mufasa” Vader talks to Luke.
You can check out the videos made by Leprechaunproduction here (Via Brokehoedown)
A very interesting article on the Business Week site is questioning if the Disney buying Pixar deal will be paying of with Ratatouille as its first defender. Although predictions don’t speak of a record box office, a positive answer to the questions is quickly provided in the write up. The happiest people will be the shareholders of course, who saw their share go up 40% since the deal was made.
Pixar’s project for 2009 is called “UP” with Pete Docter, director of Monster Inc in the directors chair and Bob Peterson writing the script and co-direct.
The Disney-owned toon studio’s release that year will be “Up,” about a 70-year-old man who teams with a wilderness ranger to fight beasts and villains. (Variety)
So we are getting “Ratatouille”, “Wall*E” next summer, the now announced “UP” in 2009 and the return of Buzz and Woodie in “Toy Story 3″ in summer 2010. The Pixar future is looking good…
While Disney, and especially the theme Parks, is my biggest hobby, they are not the only things I love. There is more (I know, that is hard to believe being the Disney Geek I am). No, I will not bore you with a list of all the other things I do and collect but with the news I read this week I could not help myself rambling about at least one of the other things I am a devoted fan of. Now don’t run away from this, it is related to Disney in a big way…
I am a big comic collector. I have well over 10.000 comics and most of them are from Marvel. I totally geek out on anything related to the X-Men, but love many other Marvel comics to. I also enjoy most of the Marvel related movies, although Spiderman III was a big letdown. (I had to say it! Common fellow comic fans; the original Venom story line is so much better, what they did with him in the movie was just wrong and boring). But let’s get to the point of this blog entry: The big news of this week was the deal between Disney and POW. POW is a company from Stan Lee, the godfather of comics and the marvelous marvel of the Marvel Universe (I know, that was lame). I am sure you seen the story online already, but here is some of my personal thoughts on the news.
My fear was justified, my provider didn’t keep their word and I am still not connected. I was just wondering; if your main business is putting people online but you can’t fulfill this task after 16 days (today it is the 20th day I have no internet, I am writing this from another location… again) then you must be doing something wrong. I still don’t know the cause of the problem, and judging from their answers they still don’t know what is going on.
There was only one solution; change provider. So yesterday I got my logon information and a letter that I will be connected today. Although I am cautious with their promises, it does look like I will be fully online again as from tomorrow. I’ll be back, will have a lot of catching up to do, so be sure to check out the blog a lot again…
… or: “Pirates take over - Part II: battlefield breakfast table”. I admit that I followed the numerous reports and discussions about the sweetened breakfast cereals that Kellog’s offered adorned with Disney brands and characters in the US amusing. But then I opened the flyer of the local supermarket last night to scan the offers for the coming week and saw it: TWO Disney branded cereals from a company called Weetabix, here in Germany (and as I learned online also available in the UK)!!
I am not talking about this blog being taken over by Pirates (even so the amount of Pirates of the Caribbean related posts here could make one think so) nor am I talking about the silver screens around the globe (where Pirates of the Caribbean has been ruling since it opened in May). No I am talking about the sales charts for DVD releases in high definition formats!
As has been widely discussed The Walt Disney Company chose to exclusively support the Blue-Ray DVD format, created under the leadership of Sony, instead of the competing HD-DVD format. In other words: Disney is betting that Blue-Ray will win the competition (other studios are more reluctant to place a bet). On May 22, 2007 Disney finally released the first two movies of the Pirates series, “Pirates of the Caribbean - The Curse of the Black Pearl” and “Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man’s Chest”, on Blue-Ray. And according to a press release of the Blue-Ray Association - cited by the German website Digitalfernsehen - the success equals finding a pirate’s treasure… (more…)
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