Disney Consumer Products Projects Profitble Future
At an online press conference preceding this month’s Licensing Show, Walt Disney outlined their plans for 2011 and the future. Andy Mooney, president of Disney Consumer Products, hosted the event and emphasized that the company’s properties were all being evaluated for exploitation in all forms, using the phrase “newness” to cover technology and “value” to explain multi-figure packaging.
Obviously, the company expects to reap huge profits from this month’s 3-D release of Toy Story 3. Mooney anticipates $2.4 billion of global sales of merchandise for this franchise alone.
After that, Mooney felt Tron: Legacy, coming in December, will appeal to boys and has partnered with Mattel for toys based on the movie starring Jeff Bridges and Olivia Wilde.
For 2011, the company will be flogging Pixar’s next sequel, Cars 2, due in June, following a month later with the next animated Winnie the Pooh movie. For the younger set, there will also be the first new Muppets feature film in nearly a decade. The Disney Princess brand will continue to be pushed, accompanied by the recently launched Fairies line of product which already has grown into a $1.3 billion business.
Little was said about the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film, On Stranger Tides, which takes the action to America. Similarly, nothing was mentioned about the next big action film, 2012’s live-action John Carter of Mars.
Disney is also exploring a sequel to 3 Men and a Baby, the 1987 film, directed by Leonard Nimoy and starting Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson. The charming comedy led to a less charming sequel 3 Men and a Little Lady in 1990 and now the studio appears interested in seeing a later chapter in their lives. Selleck confirmed for MTV that “It is true that Disney checked my availability,” he said. 3 Men and a Bride is the likely title and plotline, with Selleck adding, “I hope it’s a good script, and if it is a good script I hope they do it, because it would be really fun to get back with Ted and Steve. The strongest of the two movies I think is the first one. It had more heart, and that’s what I hope this third one would have if we do it.”
Over the last few days there’s been a lot of interesting film casting going on so let’s review:
Few individuals understand the intricacies of the voice of Batman better than Andrea Romano.
On the face of it, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp teaming up to interpret 
sounded ideal. Too perfect and maybe that was the problem. Burton is no stranger to flights of fancy and provided us with a modern day fairy tale in [[[Edward Scissorhands]]] (just named by Entertainment Weekly as one of the top 10 characters of the last 20 years). His visual imagination is apparently limitless as he provides a fresh eye to each film he makes. His collaborations with Depp lead to engaging performances as the actor vanishes into each role.
ComicMix congratulates Joe Quesada on his justly deserved promotion, recognizing the strides he has made in salvaging Marvel as a creative entity in the years since the company emerged from bankruptcy.
In case you were sleeping off the three-day weekend and missed it, director Guillermo Del Toro withdrew from The Hobbit, announcing in a press release leaded to The One Ring that MGM’s inability to green light the production forced his move. Del Toro has an extensive deal with Universal Studios carrying him through 2017 and his window to direct the two films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic novel was rapidly closing.
We couldn’t begin to guess how 
As [[[the Peanuts]]] gang further cemented themselves into the fabric of American society, one could always count on the animated specials arriving each year. Unfortunately, as the 1970s progressed, the strip and specials continued to lose their charm and appeal, coasting on their heyday a decade previously.
The second DC Showcase animated short, Jonah Hex, will appear as a bonus feature on the Special Edition Blu-Ray and 2-Disc Special Edition DVD release of Batman: Under the Red Hood.
The first DC Showcase short was The Spectre and was, in many ways, superior to the Justice League feature it was attached to. Similarly, this is likely to be better than the live-action incarnation due out June 18 if the early buzz is to be believe. Certainly having Lansdale, who wrote two miniseries with the gunslinger, involved helps matters.
