Mousekingdom Blog

Many of you might already know about the upcoming Food and Wine festival in Disneyland Resort that starts on April 24th, but you might overlook one special event that will take place during the event.

One special family coming to talk about wine is John and Nancy Lasseter. “Lasseter? As in Pixar’s Lasseter?” Yes indeed. The two time academy award winning director is also a vintner and after sharing his movie magic with the Disney fans he is now ready to share some of his wine. I wonder if it has a Pixar label?

If you’re interested in his wines and knowledge about them you should consider making reservations as soon as possible. His name is enough to fill a room in a heartbeat.

The picture is not from a Lasseter wine! Just ask Ratatouille…

…Kung Fu Panda!

“Kung Fu Panda” was the big surprise winner of the annual Annie Awards last Friday. The Annie Awards is especially created for animation and celebrates its 36th year. “Kung Fu Panda” also sets a new record during this years awards. With no less then 10 awards it surpasses the previous king of animation, “Ratatouille” (9 Annie Awards).

The big surprise is that the favorite “Wall-E” could not convince the jury and had to go back home empty handed. It did not win any awards although being nominated for multiple categories. Now its up to the Oscars where Wall-E has to face “Kung Fu Panda” again…

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Does the title look wrong for you when visiting a Disney blog? Well it isn’t! Or is it? Confused?…

Ratatouille was a great Disney gem full of fun. For Disney it was also a nice little income. Other people have seen that too and some of them try to get a little bit of that money. The do this by making something so simular, people might get confused and pick up that “other” movie instead. At least that is the impression I get when I saw this DVD in the stores today. “Ratatoeje” sound simular to Disney’s Ratatouille, but this time we get to see a restaurant in Rio de Janeiro where a mouse is the cook. The movie is said to be “A tasty adventure with a tail”. But I see some children being disappointed when they get this mouse instead of the one with the famous rat Remy. As far as I can see it is a DVD for the Dutch market.

As already mentioned on DLP.Info it’s only a rumor picked up from a CNBC article about the new Toy Story Mania ride, but Ratatouille mentioned to be the next Paris ride does sound exciting. If this will be the next Disney ride, Disney might well be back on track on bringing us exclusive rides for each Disney Park.

Lately we have seen clones pop up from rides already out there (Soarin for Walt Disney World, Buzz Lightyear made its way into Paris, Tower of Terror concurred all resorts, etc) and with (old or new) rumor suggesting even more clones (Crush’s Coaster clones for the US, more Soarin for Paris, etc), future Disney cloned rides are expected. But with Expedition Everest, Crush’s Coaster (not cloned yet), Mission Space or even whole new park concepts like Tokyo’s DisneySea, Disney proofed again and again that putting out something new and never been done before is a guarantied success. Although the clones do bring success (like the Tower does everywhere), it is nice to see that Disney still takes the road of innovative new attractions.

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Would you like to visit Paris? Valpak is giving you the chance! All you have to do is fill out the form and you can become the winner of the grand “Ratatouille” prize.

The grand-prize package includes airfare, hotel accommodations, a French dinner at the Eiffel Tower restaurant, a cruise on the Seine River and museum passes. (Promo Magazine)

Sounds nice! Sure, but one thing is missing! I wonder why, when it’s a Disney related sweep, no tickets or stay at Disneyland Resort Paris can be added. I’m sure the winner will not complain on the Paris trip, but do try to hop over to the resort too… when you’ve won. Good luck.

Picture copyrights Valpak & Disney

We all know that Disney isn’t only for the kids, its for adults too. Now Disney will have their newest celebrity, Remy from the movie Ratatouille, shine on bottles of wine.

Disney has faced a challenge in marketing the film, which has a strange name, an unusual premise (a rat who loves gourmet food), and a lead character that doesn’t lend itself to cuddly stuffed animals. In response, the company is looking for other ways to capitalize on the film’s success. Much of this alternative merchandizing centers on food, such as branded kitchen utensils and tableware. The Ratatouille branded French chardonnay will be sold only at Costco stores, at $12.99 per bottle. The wine goes on sale in August. (Join Together)

Sounds strange to me to promote wine with a rat, even if it is a lovable rat from a Disney Animation. Anyways, anybody drinking the wine, please do so in moderation and let me know if it is any good.

Picture copyrights MatthewA

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

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.

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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?!

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Make sure to head over to Disney.com to see a 9 minute exclusive preview of the new Disney – Pixar movie Ratatouille. You will get a great clip on how Remy, the rat, literary falls into the kitchen where Linguini works as a kitchen help. A great 9 minutes with some good laughs! I think this movie is going to be great.

I won’t write more as some readers don’t like spoilers, but if you don’t mind check it out now. Want to go to the movie spoiler free… read some of our other (non spoiler) Disney blog articles

Picture Copyrights; Disney

A new High Definition trailer has been added on Apple.com. A lot is identical as the previous trailer but at the end some new things are shown, some real funny (they made me laugh). Don’t watch if you don’t like spoilers.

Picture copyright: Disney

Here is the trailer of the Disney – Pixar animation; ”Ratatouille”. The trailer is real fun and even got me laughing out loud a couple of times (always a good sign). Be aware that this trailer gives away the main story (in case you wanted to stay surprised don’t see it). But if you want to see how rats play puppets with humans… then check it out now.

Enjoy, and put the release date, June 29, 2007, in your calendar.

Last weekend at the WonderCon at the Moscone Center West in San Francisco, California, the latest about Disney Pixar’s upcoming feature “RATATOUILLE” was revealed during a presentation by its director Brad Bird. Attendees were treated to some more details about the story and the voice casting as well as to new clips from the movie – and finally also the first trailer, after the teaser has been around for quite a while. While attendees certainly enjoyed this part of the presentation, for those of us not able to attend another segment of the presentation might be even more exciting: the open-question session, during which the audience got Brad Bird to reveale some rather interesting news … about “RATATOUILLE” as well as other projects…

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In the Shareholders letter from Disney, Robert A. Iger gives us a first look at the new PIXAR production that will follow up Ratatouille: WALL• E. Andrew Stanton, the man that brought us Finding Nemo, is attached to the project. Release date is set to June 2008.

We’re also excited about Pixar’s next animated movie, Ratatouille, which will be released this summer. And I’m pleased to give you an exclusive first look at the title character of their next movie, WALL• E (pictured here), which will be released the following year.

With a superb 2006, how will 2007 look like for the Disney Company? These are some highlights we can look forwards to and some of my personal predictions. Remember, I could be completely incorrect, but this is how I see 2007 for Disney.

While I was a little skeptical at first when it came to the “Year of a Million Dreams” it looks like it is a big success (as I mentioned already in Disney 2006 in Review), now I can’t wait to see what will happen when the first people get to sleep in the Castle or once we get to know who gets the Disney Vacation Club points gift. These things will take the Disney Theme Parks into the media and news in a very positive way. I see Disney benefiting from this a lot. Year of a Million Dreams was a very good move that will continue to have a positive impact on the Disney Company.

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