The Walt Disney Company, which has amusement parks in the US, France and Hong Kong, is planning to open another in Haifa in 2013.
The park, which will cover 20 acres of land near the Carmel Tunnel, will be home to a 25-screen cinema complex, shops and other entertainment facilities.
The project is expected to cost more than £107 million.20 acres? £107 million? It's all bullshit.
Large-scale construction of the Shanghai Disneyland project could start as early as May with work on two major roads leading to the future theme park due to be completed in April, officials said yesterday.If they still plan on opening by 2015, they'd need to begin fairly soon.
According to rumors, the prequel will focus on the story of Mike and Sulley's time at University of Fear, and how they started off as enemies but soon became friends. The source of the rumor comes from a 2011/2011 catalog Disney gave to theater owners.First reported on French Disney fan forums Disney Central Plaza.
In recent years, Disney sold two-for-one park tickets to Southern California residents at the start of the year, roughly January to May, when attendance is down. Last year’s deal cost $72.
The new Southern California tickets do give more flexibility than the previous ones.
The old two-for-one deal required guests to go to one park on one day and the second park on another day. Both trips had to occur within 30 days of each other.
This year’s ticket can be used at either park — two visits at one park or one visit at each park. The two trips can happen any time between now and May 14.Still a great deal, and hopefully it will help with some of the crowding problems the old "2fer" ticket used to cause.
Disney's Thanksgiving film Tangled has transformed into the gift that won't stop giving, jumping the $150 million mark this week at the domestic box office and keeping up with newer Christmas family offerings.
Tangled grossed $3.6 million on Tuesday from 2,582 theaters for a cume of $150.6 million in its fifth week.
Disney's Tron: Legacy registered its own milestone Tuesday as it became the first Christmas film to cross the $100 million mark domestically. Overseas, the pic has brought in roughly $75 million for a worldwide total of $175 million.
Tron is a solid performer, but it hasn't broken out to the extent Disney might have liked beyond its core fanboy base.
Conversely, Tangled has done far more business than anyone predicted. Most had expected the film to gross $125 million domestically. Now, the movie is expected to reach $175 million.
And so it has spent the last year outfitting an underground, nerve center to address that most low-tech of problems, the wait. Located under Cinderella Castle, the new center uses video cameras, computer programs, digital park maps and other whiz-bang tools to spot gridlock before it forms and deploy countermeasures in real time.
In one corner, employees watch flat-screen televisions that depict various attractions in green, yellow and red outlines, with the colors representing wait-time gradations.
If Pirates of the Caribbean, the ride that sends people on a spirited voyage through the Spanish Main, suddenly blinks from green to yellow, the center might respond by alerting managers to launch more boats.It's all about getting guests out of the queue and into the shops and restaurants. That's not cynical, it's reality. A happy guest spends more.
ERC revealed today that the 2010 box office has tallied up to $10.55 billion. This is a .3% drop from 2009′s $10.58 billion box office but due to inflation, a 5% decrease in attendance. Xach has created a neat visualization of this figure in today’s Daily Distraction.
Tron collapsed. Part of this could be the holiday weekend, and potential loss of Friday evenings and Saturday morning business, but it's going to have to rebound/not fall next weekend if it's going to have any shot at $150 domestic. Since Disney has suggested that's the production budget, that would be the number that would be a saving throw. But as it was off over 50% from the opening weekend (compared to Avatar's 1.8%), this doesn't get pretty, unless international is strong (which so far it hasn't been). I don't think there's any way to look at these numbers positively, if there was I'd share it.Not the box office hit Disney was hoping for, but if it sticks for young boys and merchandise sales are strong then we could still see that Disneyland attraction anyways.
Jan. 4:
Letter statues: Construction walls will start going up around the “California” letters statues in front of the park’s turnstiles. Crews plan to remove the statues.
Sunshine Plaza: Inside the park, the walls will come out farther around the Sunshine Plaza, where a sunburst statue and fountain used to sit. The corridors will become narrower.
June 1:
Corridor closed: The major corridor between Sunshine Plaza and the Grizzly River Run mountain, which veers right after the park entrance, will be closed. Visitors instead can get to “a bug’s land” and Pacific Wharf by going through the Hollywood Pictures Backlot and through “a bug’s land” back entrance by the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror ride.
July 31:
Shops and restaurants closed: Restaurants and a shop on the right side inside the entrance will be closed, as walls go up for more Buena Vista Street construction. The closures will be at: Baker’s Field Bakery, Bur-r-r Bank Ice Cream and Engine-Ears Toys.
Aug. 29:
Entrance changes: Visitors will go through new turnstiles at the entrance. But they will be funneled right into a pathway behind the Soarin’ Over California ride to the Condor Flats area where they will enter the park. Most of the Sunshine Plaza area will be blocked, including the Greetings from California store. The entrance change is slated to stay until summer 2012.
While construction is underway at the entrance, new venues are set to open in the spring in the Paradise Pier area: The Little Mermaid – Ariel’s Undersea Adventure, Goofy’s Sky School and a dining-shopping complex. Opening dates have yet to be announced.I can't vouch for the accuracy of the information, and most likely the dates will be changed. But it's an interesting look at what is sure to be an involved process.
David Poland mentioned that all films that have opened to over $40 in December have done $200 Million domestically, so there is hope to keep alive, and this is Disney. The question is how much of a franchise picture is the film? Because it's quite possible that - regardless of the holidays - it drops 50% next weekend much like Narnia did. Disney's got $100 Million on lock for domestic at this point. Like a lot of pictures these days, worldwide is that number to satisfy. My bottom line is that I think the number isn't great because we've seen pictures open to this number and struggle to do much more than $100 or so.I wrote earlier on Twitter that the film could drop 60% next weekend. But with the holidays that would be a disastrous drop. I think Disney can hope for something in the 30% - 40% range.
Greenfield's latest analysis also makes the case that Disney/Pixar is seeing "underwhelming" sales of Toy Story 3. Home video sales are "tracking above last year's Up but not by the amount we would have expected," he said.Anecdotally, I used to buy a lot of DVDs but since I started Netflix a few years ago I haven't purchased a single one.
Disney's "Tron: Legacy" has the most going for it, including a great release date, cult appeal and of course the IMAX and 3-D components. So a No. 1 debut approaching an impressive $60 million is virtually assured for this long-awaited followup to the 1982 original.Tracking can be wildly off, but Disney would be very happy with $60 million.
It’s almost hard to conceive of a time that Michael Eisner elected not to build a Disney Vacation Club resort, but that’s just what happened in 2001 when Disney’s Vacation Club And Resort At Eagle Pines was announced only to slowly vanish into the mists of history afterward.
Favreau just wrapped Cowboys & Aliens and is about to embark on Disney's Magic Kingdom and "is excited about the opportunity to go do his own thing" while Kevin Feige as the ultimate custodian of Marvel's Iron Man franchise "sees it as an opportunity to bring some more fire to the franchise". Favreau is still on board to exec produce The Avengers which Joss Whedon is directing.With Iron Man 3 and Magic Kingdom both planned for a 2013 release, there was no way he could do both. There were rumors that the rushed production of Iron Man 2 really soured his relationship with Marvel. We're seeing the fruits of that now.
The reason I did this movie was to work with Johnny. That’s the real reason and there’s all these wonderful rewards along the way. But that was the main reason. I think he’s a brilliant actor and I came to find what an extraordinary person he is — a genuine, kind, elegant gentlemen; he’s funny and just fantastic. Also, for me, I always wanted to make an adventure. I was a fan of the “Pirates” series as well. I was always in line for them. Maybe because I come from choreography, I’ve always felt that there’s something about action films that made it very natural for me to go that way. It’s story through movement. I felt very at home doing action. So it was thrilling to step into that world.Rob Marshall is an fascinating choice to helm such an expensive blockbuster action film. Disney is clearly happy with what they have and honestly a fresh set of eyes will probably help the film regain some of freshness the last entry was lacking.
As part of my “Restless Nights and Disney Afternoons” category, I am presenting my first live interview webinar – and this one is a doozy. It’s a reunion of the talented folks who helped create “Disney’s Adventures of THE GUMMI BEARS.” A 2-hour LIVE web event, featuring interviews plus unseen Gummi materials (photos, sketches, etc.)Registration is $20 and limited to 50 participants.
Temple Hill, producer of the hugely successful Twilight movie series, is making a big move in television, signing a two-year overall deal with ABC Studios. This is the first TV pact for Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen's Temple Hill, which will mark its fifth anniversary in February. Under the deal, Temple Hill will be developing and producing series projects for ABC Studios. First off is a contemporary re-imagening of Alexandre Dumas, pere's The Count of Monte Cristo.
The Disney licensing arrangement would significantly broaden the entertainment options available to Netflix subscribers, allowing them for the first time to watch previous seasons of a number of ABC shows including "Grey's Anatomy," "Brothers & Sisters," and "Ugly Betty." In addition, Netflix will add the final season of "Lost," for which it previously streamed the first six seasons.
The video service will also have shows from the ABC Family and Disney Channel networks, including some shows that initially aired as recently as 15 days prior.Cable and satellite companies must be clutching their hearts.
I don’t think it’s going to be mixing all the other movies. I think it’s going to be its own thing; I don’t think it will be like Night at the Museum. I want to make it a little bit spookier like the old Disney movies were and try to really capture that tone...Both this and Iron Man 3 are scheduled for 2013. Favreau isn't under contract for a third Iron Man film and, obviously, he can't do both.
The original ending to the Carousel of Progress as it was at Disneyland from 1967-1973. It was nearly identical to the 1964-1965 World's Fair ending.
BURBANK, Calif. – December 8, 2010 – The Walt Disney Studios announced today that it has moved the release date for its upcoming The Muppets Movie to November 23, 2011. Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie the Bear, Gonzo, Animal and the rest of the gang will reunite in theaters just in time for the 2011 Thanksgiving holiday weekend. "Disney has had incredible success opening films over the Thanksgiving weekend, and thanks to Tangled, we have the top three Thanksgiving openers of all time,” said Chuck Viane, president of global distribution for Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. “I have spoken with The Muppets, and we all agreed this comedy is a great fit for the holiday 2011 time frame.”
For those unfamiliar with Sherwood, over the summer The Awl had a comprehensive overview of all the reasons that people hate him, following the “child of privilege deeply disliked by his classmates” who earned the enmity of his entire Harvard class for his relentless résumé-building and “cynical social-climbing,” then moved on to exploiting his family connections to land jobs at the Los Angeles Times and CBS (“where he added Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather to his résumé as references”), and finally ended up writing novels about how life is just a game of catch with your dead ghost bro that became Zac Efron movies.
Humor me as I share what might look like a pile of garbage. For me, this garbage represents a whole lot of theme park ingenuity and memories of getting my hands dirty early, early in the morning...
All in all, $660 million is a very good price for Disney because film library values have taken a hit as DVD/video has flattened. True, Disney once placed a sky-high $1.2 billion pricetag on the Miramax library. Then the company hoped to get around $800 million, then $700 million, for Miramax, and this number comes awfully close to that.The Miramax chapter was an interesting one for the Walt Disney Studios, but it was never a very good fit for the company.
Because HitFix can now exclusively report that Disney has begun quietly telling cast and crew to set aside a major block of time in the very near future so they can shoot "Pirates 5" and "Pirates 6." And, yes, once again, they will be shooting them back-to-back as one giant film, and then they'll release them as two films.They must be incredibly happy with how the new one is shaping up. I wonder if Rob Marshall will direct.
It’s just a rumor at this point, but more than one industry source has mentioned to me that Disney’s board may have been kicking around some options to quietly “buy out Universal” to get the theme park rights to the Marvel characters back and completely under Disney’s control, allowing them to get the most out of their new purchase...That would be something, but why spend the money now unless they have a Marvel project that is ready to go?
Universal’s intellectual property rights are limited geographically to the use of the Marvel brand in Orlando and the Spider-Man brand in Japan.So, again, why would Disney pony up for the exclusive rights now?
For though undeniably strong, the $68.7 million rung up by the Disney-branded movie during its first five days also serves to underscore some internecine rivalry among the studio's movie animators. And unless "Tangled" continues to outpace expectations during the length of its theatrical run, its Burbank animators will continue to struggle with the knotty problem of competing with their corporate kin at Pixar.What differentiates a Pixar film from a Disney film? I'm not sure that anyone knows.
As to the stunt show, this was developed under the Entertainment department on their own rather than Imagineering which was probably why it was not well known. An outside consultant was brought in and I seem to remember a model might also have been done. It was essentially a comic gun fight with exploding buildings and such but, as Jeff said, it was cancelled because of the clash with the Buffalo Bill show.I always like reading about theme park attractions that never were.
The 3D sci-fi film has been marketed heavily for months en route to its Dec. 17 bow, and many have been suggesting a big opening and leggy theatrical run based on built-in interest from the cult base of its 1982 predecessor. But at this point, tracking suggests Tron: Legacy with as little as $35 million.More than two weeks out, tracking is near meaningless.
The full ElecTRONica experience will be available until 10 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 1. The rest of the park will close at 8 p.m., but anyone already in the Park for ElecTRONica can enjoy the party until 10 p.m.ElecTRONica = so much $$$
Disney’s Tangled bulldozed its way past analysts’ expectations earning an estimated $49.1 million over the weekend, and boosting its five-day Thanksgiving holiday total to a towering $69 million. Disney’s first CG princess cartoon was one million dollars shy of Harry Potter’s first place box office finish, however, its three-day total still ranks as the biggest opening ever for a feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation.Even the studio was only expecting ~$35 million for the five-day weekend. But when Wednesday's figures started rolling in, they were way above early estimates. The numbers kept building through the weekend.
A headline in today’s LA Times erroneously reported that the Disney fairy tale is a thing of the past, but I feel it is important to set the record straight that they are alive and well at Disney and continue this week with Tangled, a contemporary retelling of a much loved story. We have a number of projects in development with new twists that audiences will be able to enjoy for many years to come.
Disney has been fortunate in not only capturing the hearts of many young Chinese Mickey Mouse fans but also being surprisingly welcomed by its Chinese competitors.
In the eyes of Liu Pingchun, chief executive officer of China's top theme park developer, Shenzhen OCT Holding Company, the cartoon mouse may help Chinese theme park operators to cultivate a much bigger market.
A few years ago, Liu visited 12 theme parks in Japan within nine days to make a survey of the influence that Tokyo Disneyland had on the local industry. He found the Disney resort promoted the development of other local parks.
"In the theme park field, the market is always created by park builders," Liu told China Daily.Will the rising tide lift all boats?
At present, China has around 2,500 theme parks with a total investment of 300 billion yuan, but only a quarter make a profit, according to Chinese media reports.Wow. I wonder what they're counting as "theme parks," though.
The whole project, which is to cover 1.16 square km, will be the largest Disneyland in the world, said He Jianmin, Director of the Tourism Department of the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, which participated in the appraisal of the project.
The construction will be divided into three phases. The first phase, including a nearly 1-square-km theme park area, is to involve an investment about 25 billion yuan ($3.68 billion) and is planned for completion around 2014. After it opens, the number of tourists is expected to add up to 10 million every year, while the total tourists visiting the whole park will be 30 million annually, He said.
Water will be one of the main features of the first phase of the Shanghai Disneyland. A 0.39-square-km lake will be built in the first phase, which will take up a sizeable proportion of the entire park. It will be used as a base for water recreation activities and transportation.
In the northeast of the lake, a 7,000-square-meter artificial island will be built. On the north side of the lake are spaces for the construction of a public transportation hub, entertainment facilities and hotels. A river which will surround the park has been under construction since October. As a whole, the park will present to tourists an impression of a water world.
The section to be built in the first phase will focus on the theme of a magic kingdom. It will include five different theme areas.
A 20-square-km Shanghai International Tourism Resort will be built to surround the theme park. A joint venture set up in August by Disney and the SSG will be in charge of operating the Shanghai theme park.
A special Disneyland subway line is to be built to link the fun park with the urban area of Shanghai.So far, Disney has been very mum on their plans but that hasn't stopped details from leaking.
Disney has decided to partner with location service Gowalla — rather than Facebook or Foursquare — for an immersive location-based campaign to help people explore its flagship Disneyworld and Disneyland parks.
The Gowalla/Disney partnership focuses around custom Passport pages that not only show off Disney-branded stamps (Gowalla’s version of Badges), but also a photo and check-in stream. Gowalla’s Disney page also offers Disney-branded pins that users can earn by completing specific trips within Disneyworld and Disneyland.
This isn’t just a few stamps and a check-in stream, though; Gowalla and Disney have created literally hundreds of stamps for rides and locales within the two parks. Everything from the fireworks show to “Finding Nemo-The Music” offers a stamp or pin that can be earned by checking in.What's the benefit for Disney? I wonder if they get cash money.
Executives at Walt Disney Co., preparing their latest push for this audience, say that some TV for tots favors curriculum over storytelling. They argue that it's sometimes too much work, not enough play.
They're offering themselves as an alternative to Nickelodeon's Nick Jr. channel, which emphasizes learning. Disney says that today's parents are ready for a change. In an age of video games and iPads, kids can learn their ABCs anywhere. What's missing are good, old-fashioned stories that kids can repeat to others, pretend to be the characters, and watch again and again.Disney Junior replaces Playhouse Disney on the Disney Channel and in the theme parks in February and gets its own 24-hour channel in 2012 replacing SOAPnet.
Following the death of the broadcast networks' Saturday morning cartoon tradition, preschoolers have been watching at all hours. Forty percent more of them now watch Nick Jr. from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. than during the rest of the day, according to the network.
The article, by Gordon S. Mitchell of Universal’s sound department – who includes ample references to Lantz’s Oswald Rabbit – is a pretty poorly written explanation of how cartoons are produced. However, it does feature several unique behind-the-scenes photos and drawings, and well worth a look for how animation production was explained to the public in those long ago days before DVD bonus features.
To date, Walt Disney Imagineering has received a total of 34 awards throughout the Thea Awards’ 17-year history. Some of Disney’s past recipients of Awards for Outstanding Achievement include Toy Story Midway Mania! at Disney California Adventure and Disney’s Hollywood Studios, “Finding Nemo- The Musical” and Expedition Everest at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Soarin’ Over California at Disney California Adventure, Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland Park, Space Mountain, From the Earth to the Moon at Disneyland Paris, CineMagique at Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris and ‘The Legend of Mythica’ at Tokyo DisneySea.
Del Toro and Eick will break the story for the pilot script together, sharing story and created by credit. Eick will write the script, with del Toro attached to direct subject to his availability. Del Toro will also oversee the designing of the Hulk character...Seriously cool news for fans of the Hulk.
Under Academy rules, “in any year when 8 to 15 animated features are released in Los Angeles County, a maximum of 3 motion pictures may be nominated.” Had one more feature qualified, the number of nominees would have expanded to five features.
The biggest losers in this scenario are the indies like Bill Plympton’s Idiots and Angels, Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist and Paul and Sandra Fierlinger’s My Dog Tulip, as well as the sleeper anime hit, Mamoru Hosoda’s Summer Wars. A field of five nominees would virtually guarantee one or two of them a nomination, but they face an uphill battle now.Disney is pushing hard for a Best Picture nomination for Toy Story 3. With the Academy expanding the Best Picture nominations to ten films beginning last year, there's a good chance they'll get it.
"We certainly understand the challenges that DHS confronts, but the question remains, 'where do we draw the line'? Our country desperately needs a long-term vision for aviation security screening, rather than an endless reaction to yesterday's threat," the statement said. "At the same time, fundamental American values must be protected."If you're planning on flying this holiday, might I direct you here.
Well we're pretty excited about the new design. We just opened the new store which you should see in Times Square, but we'll proceed with real caution. We're using the design as a platform to greatly improve the quality of the merchandise and the presentation and we're also using it to improve location which we've done quite well. Times Square, I think, is a good example of that. But we look at specialty retail as a relatively challenging business and with that in mind we're going to be really careful and watch these results quite carefully. We've redesigned in the 18-19 store range, I think maybe it was around 20, and we don't see going significantly higher fast. We're going to wait and see how these stores do before we make any decisions about rollout. It cost us slightly above a million dollars a store for this new design. We think it's closer to probably $1.4 for the initial stores, and that will trend down as we bring this design to more, but we're going to be careful about this.Emphasis added.
The company booked a net loss of €45.2m for the 12 months to the end of September, compared to €63m a year ago.
Disneyland Paris visitor numbers, on the other hand, stood at 15 million, down from 15.4 million in 2009. Visitors spent more, however, with the average guest doling out €45.3 this year, up from €44.22 in 2009.
Jon Favreau is in talks to direct Magic Kingdom, the Disney film with the premise that the attractions at the venerable theme park come to life. The studio set the project up nearly two years ago and got a draft by Battlestar Galactica's Ron Moore, but a new writer will be set and work on a new draft under Favreau.As the article mentions, Disney has picked up a lot of A-list directors in the past few months. Kind of a change of strategy under Rich Ross.
As the LAT acknowledges, “there’s not much known mythology behind the Tiki Room,” but such things don't matter when it comes to corporate synergy, as Zappa’s script isn’t so much a straight adaptation of the attraction, but rather “an action-adventure that mixes in Polynesian mythology.”Perhaps it will disappear into the labyrinths of development hell, as Jungle Cruise did.
The Times Square store, two years in the making, is expected to produce 5 percent of the chain's North American revenue. Disney's first Manhattan store opened in 1997 on Fifth Avenue and closed in January.
The new store debuted informally on Thursday and was to be open from 9 a.m. to midnight daily. But managers are testing a 1 a.m. store closing to accommodate the crowds showing up.5% of the chain's North American revenue is an impressive figure.
It would have been nice if Disney's self-touted 50th animated feature were one of its best, a film that could stand with the studio's classics, but the world will have to make do with "Tangled," a passably entertaining hodgepodge of old and new animation techniques, mixed sensibilities and hedged commercial calculations.And Justin Change for Variety (subscription required) agrees, saying:
After last year's "The Princess and the Frog" grossed an underwhelming $104 million domestically, Disney execs opted to change the title of the new film from "Rapunzel" to the more gender-neutral "Tangled." If that suggests a vote of no confidence in traditional princess fare (imagine if "The Little Mermaid" had been called "Beached"), the hipper moniker does underscore the film's odd, somewhat perplexing mix of sensibilities -- pitched somewhere between Disney classicism and the self-conscious storybook quality of DreamWorks' "Shrek" movies or, at best, Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods."Even more biased, self-proclaimed Disney fans, like those writing for The Disney Blog, conclude:
...while Tangled is not perfect, it is definitely entertaining and proof that Disney Animation is slowly returning to the right track creatively.Color me less than enthused.
Word is new ABC programming chief Paul Lee was personally involved in the network's efforts to get the comedy that would bring Allen back to ABC where he toplined one of the network's biggest comedies, Home Improvement. Man Up, from 20th TV and studio-based 21 Laps/Adelstein, is a multi-camera family comedy about a guy fighting for his manhood in a world of women.A sitcom based on misogyny. No doubt it'll be a big hit.
WSJ: You're spending $1 billion to overhaul Disney California Adventure, Disneyland's less-famous neighbor. Why?
Mr. Iger: [Apple CEO] Steve Jobs is fond of talking about brand deposits and brand withdrawals. Any time you do something mediocre with your brand, that's a withdrawal. California Adventure was a brand withdrawal.
We debated, "Should we make it one park?" Raise the price at Disneyland, and suddenly one ticket buys you the whole thing. I even had Imagineers design that.
[But] we would have had to put in transportation systems. It would have cost us so much money to put the monorail in. And to do other things to create one park. That didn't make sense.
We all concluded that the only way we would improve returns on that park is if we made it better and we made it bigger. And we decided to put what is now [around] $1 billion into that.
WSJ: What are you adding?
Mr. Iger: We opened up the first attraction, [the animation-inspired] "World of Color." "Little Mermaid" [is] next summer, and then the big kahuna of them all, "Cars Land," which is a 12-acre land [based on the Pixar animated film.]
[Cars Land] will open in the middle of 2012. "World of Color" has increased attendance since it opened at California Adventure by 20%.Emphasis mine.
