All things Disney (except Marvel).
So, mercifully, this is not a remake of Mary Poppins that Disney is planning, but a sequel, twenty year later. It will all depend on the story, and it looks like they want to draw a lot on Travers' source material, which is all good — but they'll have a heck of a time replacing Julie Andrews.
Disney to revisit Mary Poppins with new movie musical
A new movie musical featuring P.L. Travers’ Mary Poppins nanny is in the works at Walt Disney Studios. Why this could be a big risk.
This has me so much more excited than the whole Avatar felgercarb. I want to go to this now.
The full story in the Orange County Register (http://www.ocregister.com/articles/disney-671925-michael-says.html) is pretty fun, as is the video.
Originally shared by +Les Jenkins:
Video: The First Two Children To Visit Disneyland
We’ve all seen video of the park’s grand opening, but have you ever wondered what happened to the first two children to visit Disneyland? Here is the story.
With velociraptors in the roles of Disney Princesses …
Interesting tact, going for the "personal lives" thing rather than the "variety show" thing. I'll certainly give it a spin to see how it does
Normally I'd be very ho-hum about the premise and all, but given that's coming from Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh, of Phineas & Ferb and Rocko's Secret Life fame … yeah, even if it's a "kid's" show, I'll give it a whirl.
‘Phineas & Ferb’ Creators Land New Animated Comedy on Disney XD
The creators of Disney’s animated series “Phineas and Ferb” are bringing a new comedy to Disney XD. Variety has learned “Mikey Murphy’s Law” has been greenlit for a 2017 premiere. The upcoming seri…
Loved this show with a deep and abiding passion. Great humor, catchy music, tons of imagination. It's remarkable to think that it's been running for 8 years. Many thanks to Dan Povenmire and Jeff Marsh (and the cast and crew and other contributors) for something very special.
On 9 June, Disney XD will be running a P&F marathon, leading up to the 12 June series finale. After which we'll, sadly, be unable to answer the question "Where's Perry?" ever again.
(h/t +Gretchen Sher)
Goodbye, Phineas and Ferb, and Thank You for Showing My Kids What Summer Vacation Should Be Like
All children understand that summer must end. Indeed, it’s summer’s short life—just 104 blessed days of sleepaway camp and lounging by the pool and sleeping in and complaining that you’re bored, and isn’t there anything to do, Dad—that makes it so precious. If every day was summer vacation, summer vacation…
Criminitely. Yes, it's cool that the manufacturer is at least paying some lip service to changing things — but this goes right along with the difficulty of finding Avengers material that includes the Black Widow, classic JL product that includes Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl, etc., except in this case the whole numbering scheme really calls out the problem.
Maybe boys think girl characters are "yucky" because they're pandered to having just boy characters on their t-shirts and sheets and stickers. Maybe boys actually think those girl characters are cool, but the manufacturers are making assumptions based on how they felt in 1965. Maybe enough girls would think girl characters (and boy characters) are cool to make it worth actually producing stuff with them.
(h/t +Les Jenkins)
Big Hero 6 fabric excludes girl characters because boys think girls are “yuck”: manufacturer
UPDATE (4/10/2015, 3:30pm PT): See comment from Springs Creative below.
I am always a little leery about sequels to films I really, really, really like. But I also have a lot of faith in Brad Bird.
One question is that the individual character arcs in the original film were so strong — both of the kids, both of the adults, and the married couple, and the family as a whole — that it causes me some head scratching to think of where to go with them from here (and how to make that as engaging as in the first).
(h/t +Les Jenkins)
Brad Bird Is Currently Writing The Incredibles 2
In March 2014, news broke that The Incredibles 2 was coming. Now the film’s writer and director Brad Bird has begun writing the film. Read more here.
The problem I have with Disney's Song of the South is not that its racial / historic context is so sketchy (that's certainly there, but as one commenter on the article notes, much the same can be said for Gone with the Wind), but that it's a combination of some wonderful animated short stories and some just plain awful live action segments.
Maybe what Disney needs to do is, rather than effectively burying the film, use their lawyers to ensure trademarks on the animated characters but just release the movie itself to the public domain in some fashion that means they won't make any money off of it, but others can watch and debate and enjoy or excoriate it to the extent they feel so moved. That wouldn't end the controversy, but it would let Disney step away from it.
Disney Animator praises “Song of the South” | The Disney Blog
Former Disney animator Floyd Norman was just a boy when Walt Disney’s feature film “Song of the South” was released into the theaters. Norman has just written a powerful blog post about the film. While he doesn’t come right out and ask for Disney to release the film on DVD, he does come “this” …
Well, if so, it's pretty funny. Go get 'er, Belle!
I was sorely disappointed last night to discover that neither Honest Trailers nor How It Should Have Ended have ever tackled 2001: A Space Odyssey … but this new look-back at Disney's old classic has helped my mood immensely.
Finally got around to seeing it last night and, yeah, I'm sorry we didn't see it sooner and in a theater.
A ★★★★½ review of Big Hero 6 (2014)
For some reason we never got to this in the theaters, which is kind of a shame, since the big screen movements scream for it, but even on a home TV it’s a great watch, full of heroism, tragedy, comedy, and, oh, the feels. In the bonus material, the creators note they were trying to make a Disney Super-Hero movie, and, yeah, they did, complete with obligatory orphaning (in multiple axes), twist, turns, betrayal, explorations of the nature of heroi…
I was sick while Margie was way last time, so I didn't get my reviews done.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988) ★★★½
Big story, professional acting, remarkable IP merging, but the central conceit of blending toon with reality hasn't aged all that well.
http://letterboxd.com/three_star_dave/film/who-framed-roger-rabbit/1/
(Previous review: http://letterboxd.com/three_star_dave/film/who-framed-roger-rabbit/)
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (2008) ★★★½
Del Toro spends so much time crafting a rich, gorgeous, freaky faerie world that there's little time left for the BPRD characters to actually, you know, be character. I like the first one better.
http://letterboxd.com/three_star_dave/film/hellboy-ii-the-golden-army/
Monsters University (2013) ★★★★
MU got a bum rap for being a shoddy sequel to Monster's Inc. I like the original a bit better, but this one has nothing to be ashamed of.
http://letterboxd.com/three_star_dave/film/monsters-university/
Mystery Men (1999) ★★
I really want to like this movie. I did when it came out fifteen years ago. I probably will in another fifteen. And I'll still be mostly failing.
http://letterboxd.com/three_star_dave/film/mystery-men/
I like it.
Originally shared by +Geoff Smith:
Star Wars 7 Possible Plot
This is a very plausible plot. Not the best thing to happen, but hey, it's not the worst.
#starwars #starwars7 #starwarsspinoff
And not just because I've had some of these internal monologues before.
Crikey. Yeah, this has Isaac Perlmutter (the guy intimately involved in Marvel's bankruptcy back in the 90s) written all over it.
The sense of some of these items seems to depend on how you think causality works. Does a Fantastic Four comic actually increase Fantastic Four movie sales? Or is it the other way around? Do X-Men toys encourage Fox to make another X-Movie, or do they simply profit Marvel who has the license for them?
Given the relative size of the comic book market to the movie market, it doesn't make much sense to me.
There are some interesting, even legit items here, though (e.g., not introducing new characters as mutants / X-Men because then the movie rights automatically go to Fox). On the other hand, making the Fantastic Four un-persons in the comic book Marvel Universe is … um … kind of goofy (esp. since that seems to also sideline characters like Galactus and Doctor Doom and the Skrulls).
Bottom line, though, it all seems to e something coming from above and outside, and I don't necessarily think it's a Disney thing.
Originally shared by +Les Jenkins:
None of this surprises me. Now that Marvel has a successful film studio going I can see them doing everything in their power to get the rights back for the characters they sold off in the 90's. It also doesn't help that they're owned by Disney who holds onto its IP rights so jealously that they've been known to sue daycare centers that painted Disney characters on the walls without permission.
8 Acts of Pure Spite Happening Behind the Scenes of Marvel Movies
The battles going on behind-the-scenes of Marvel movies are just as epic, except with more lawyers.
Making a movie out of a … well, a Disneyland zone, sounds kind of dumb. On the other hand, Brad Bird is nobody to dismiss, and this trailer looks pretty cool.
(h/t +Les Jenkins)
The Supreme Court not only declined to hear the gay marriage appeal, they also declined an appeal by the heirs of Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, the guys who created Superman, bringing to an end their attempt to take back the copyright for the character.
Of course, unlike some other work-for-hire comic creator scandals, it appears there had been a number of agreements and settlements reached since then between the creators and DC. That seems to have tipped the scales for the Superman case.
For what it's worth, Action Comics No. 1 goes into Public Domain in the US in 2033, from a copyright perspective (though Superman's likeness, etc., will still be trademarked). Of course, it seems likely that the Big Media companies (starting with Disney) will be pushing very hard for still more extensions to copyright well before then.
Supreme Court won’t hear Superman heirs’ copyright case
The most famous comic character was sold for $130—but that’s not the whole story.
