Tagged: Pixar
A New ‘Brave’ Trailer from Pixar
Brave, Pixar’s summer 2012 offering, has a new trailer for you to enjoy.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEHWDA_6e3M [/youtube]
Since ancient times, stories of epic battles and mystical legends have been passed through the generations across the rugged and mysterious Highlands of Scotland. In Brave, a new tale joins the lore when the courageous Merida (voice of Kelly Macdonald) confronts tradition, destiny and the fiercest of beasts.
Merida is a skilled archer and impetuous daughter of King Fergus (voice of Billy Connolly) and Queen Elinor (voice of Emma Thompson). Determined to carve her own path in life, Merida defies an age-old custom sacred to the uproarious lords of the land: massive Lord MacGuffin (voice of Kevin McKidd), surly Lord Macintosh (voice of Craig Ferguson) and cantankerous Lord Dingwall (voice of Robbie Coltrane). Merida’s actions inadvertently unleash chaos and fury in the kingdom, and when she turns to an eccentric old Witch (voice of Julie Walters) for help, she is granted an ill-fated wish. The ensuing peril forces Merida to discover the meaning of true bravery in order to undo a beastly curse before it’s too late. (more…)
MIKE GOLD: Disney Does Marvel
As is well-known, the Walt Disney Company purchased Marvel Comics a little over two years ago. Marvel joined the Muppets, Pixar, ABC and ESPN as tentacles of that great evil media empire that has done so much to homogenize the American culture. After all the jokes died down, some people wondered why the Mouse wanted the House that Jack Built in the first place.
Disney is a movie company, and Marvel’s shiniest family jewels – Spider-Man and The X-Men – were in the hands of competing studios (Columbia Pictures and 20th Century Fox, respectively) and aren’t likely to revert any time soon. The sundry Avengers characters were in the hands of Paramount Pictures, although Disney was able to purchase a nice reversion deal here. But, still, the motion picture revenue picture was severely compromised by the Spidey and X deals, and made all the more expensive by the Paramount buy-back. So, the question “why” certainly is valid.
Nobody that big buys a publishing venture – certainly not a comic book publishing venture – for the profits it will generate on its own. The phrase “fart in a blizzard” comes to mind. Merchandising and licensing revenues can be fairly attractive and Disney/Marvel/Muppets are a good fit. But… still… why?
I think we’re beginning to see the real reason. Disney owns ABC, which includes ABC Family, the Disney Channel, Disney XD (which already carries many of the Marvel animated shows), Playhouse Disney, Disney Cinemagic, Hungama, Jetix, Radio Disney, SoapNet, WABC-TV New York, KABC-TV Los Angeles, WLS-TV Chicago, WPVI-TV Philadelphia, KGO-TV San Francisco, KTRK-TV Houston, WTVD-TV Raleigh-Durham, and KFSN-TV Fresno, and as the various ESPN channels – possibly excluding “El Ocho.” Plus all kinda stuff overseas.
One can argue that teevee in general doesn’t have much of a future, and I might agree. But teevee programming has one hell of a great future no matter what platform we’ll be enjoying in the future: cable, satellite, computers, tablets, integrated teevee/computer systems, visors, brain implants, whatever. And that’s where the Mighty Marvel Money Machine will become the Mouse’s cash cow, true believer.
Disney already has The Hulk, Cloak and Dagger and Alias in development. Of course “Alias” has to be renamed – it’s working under the title “a.k.a. Jessica Jones” right now, and the show includes both Luke Cage and Carol Danvers. Mockingbird is also in development as a Miley Cyrus style kids show, possibly as fodder for the ABC Family network.
Step back a pace and take a look at what’s going on here.
Most of these shows are built around female superheroes. As headliners, such characters are anathema to motion picture studios. But Disney is betting heavy, heavy bucks that the distaff side will draw a sufficient audience to warrant the investment.
That’s pretty cool – and very risky. Women heroes haven’t fared much better on the small screen: Nikita was renewed by the skin of her teeth, The Bionic Woman revival flamed out, as did Charlie’s Angels redux. David E. Kelley’s Wonder Woman didn’t make it past the pilot stage. Yet Disney is developing no less than three Marvel shows built around women.
So no matter what I might feel about Disney’s predatory influence on our culture, they are showing a great deal of courage here – courage they developed by purchasing Marvel.
Interesting.
THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil
Review: “Cars 2”
For whatever reason, my kids didn’t want to see Cars and we even missed it on cable and home video. When word spread that it was good but not Pixar’s best feature, there wasn’t a lot of desire among the family to check it out. The same feeling arrived this June when the inevitable sequel, spurred by enough box office revenues and massive merchandise success, arrived. We empty-nesters just couldn’t muster the desire to go see the film, despite an engaging trailer and a love for all things Pixar.
The home video release of the movie this coming week remedied this void in my Pixar knowledge. The movie is entertaining enough, moving at, appropriately enough, a racing clip; it reintroduces the established characters, moves them to a new setting and gives audiences (and merchandisers) some new players. Hilarity ensues for 106 minutes and the film itself is entertaining but it felt cookie cutter in its approach with little in the way of either heart or surprise. Where I found Up too implausible to make me suspend my disbelief, this felt far more like pure kiddie fare than the usual family friendly feature that offers something for everyone.
I suppose the espionage angle was for the adults in the crowd and yes, Michael Caine was a perfect choice for the automotive version of James Bond. Still, it felt unnecessarily tacked on, although his contrast with Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) was a nice idea. Mater is a supporting character uncomfortably thrust into the spotlight and much like a television sitcom spinoff written around a supporting character (Joey anyone?), Mater just isn’t a strong enough personality to handle the lead.
Why Is Marvel Laying Off So Many People?
Over the last two weeks, Marvel has laid off lots of people, from Bullpen staffers and editors to COO Jim Sokolowski. Heidi MacDonald may have tracked down the main culprit:
The budget slashing is the work of Marvel’s CEO, Isaac Perlmutter, an executive of legendary stinginess whose fanatical devotion to saving money —an increased interest in being hands on at Marvel — has led to the layoffs and other draconian measures inside the company.
Perlmutter and his then partner Avi Arad rode in to save Marvel from bankruptcy when they ran ToyBiz back in the late 90s. Keeping an eye on the bottom line was key to turning the company around. Bold moves like setting up their own $500 million movie studio took Marvel from penniless publishing company to a Wall Street darling with numerous stock splits. And of course, it led to Disney shelling out all that cash for a ready-made, boy-friendly franchise factory.
Although he no longer owns Marvel, Ike still runs it. And rather than sit back and enjoy his sunset years—he’s 68—with his $1.7 billion fortune, he’s chosen to keep a very active hand in running the company. In recent months he’s become even more active, showing up at the office daily. And it seems the only way he knows how to run a company is by increasing profits — not by investing in new businesses, but simply squeezing the bottom line for every last penny by any means.
If Ike thinks an expenditure is unnecessary, there’s no way around it, and anyone caught doing it is in danger of losing their job.
via Marvel Layoffs: The cheapskate is coming from inside the House of Ideas! | The Beat.
From Ike’s point of view, why not? The single biggest financial contributors to Marvel’s bottom line are movies based on stories that are up to fifty years old at this point– seventy, if you count Captain America. Why should you bother creating anything new, when there’s so much to be squeezed from the old stuff?
Heidi also speculates that this may be to impress Disney and get Ike a seat on the board, now that he’s Disney’s single largest shareholder. What Ike doesn’t realize is that Disney already tried this tactic, squeezing every last drop out of their previously created works and riding on coattails. It was called “the seventies”. But Disney realized that it couldn’t go on forever, and that new properties had to be created, new stories had to be told. That required Disney to buy Pixar, which gave them access to some of the greatest visionairies on the planet, both the animators and Steve Jobs.
Jobs was an innovator. Perlmutter is an accountant.
It was Perlmutter’s tight grip on facts, figures, and accounting that got him control of the company from Ron Perelman and Carl Icahn, drag it out of bankruptcy, and build it to something that could be sold for four billion dollars. But really, you gotta spend money and get new fans sometime. DC’s new initiative and spike in sales should get Marvel worried.
It’s almost like you’re begging to be hassled by the 99%… or as we like to think of it, almost everybody else who works for Marvel.
Disney is generally pretty good about supporting the brands that support them, such as Pixar and ESPN. But if Perlmutter is keeping tight control and tighter purse strings, you have to wonder if Disney is getting the full news from the front line.
Related articles
- Marvelcution 2011 – The Spinning Pennies Of Isaac Perlmutter (bleedingcool.com)
Steve Jobs: 1955-2011
Steven Paul Jobs, co-founder, chairman and former chief executive of Apple Inc., former owner and CEO of Pixar, and the single largest shareholder of The Walt Disney Company (now owner of Marvel), passed away Wednesday at the age of 56.
It would be almost impossible to overstate Steve Jobs’ impact on the world at large, and many other obituaries will do so. We’ll merely touch upon his impact on comics and popular culture: from the creation of the Macintosh, the computer of choice for most comics creators, to his stewardship of Pixar, which revolutionized the animation industry, to the iTunes store, the largest digital sales platform on the planet, to the creation of the iPad and iPhone, widely agreed to be the platform of the future of comics.
He will be sorely missed. Our condolences to his family, friends, and fans.
Related articles
- Steve Jobs: 1955 – 2011 (macstories.net)
- Feature: Steve Jobs: February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011 (arstechnica.com)
- Steve Jobs Has Passed Away (1955-2011) (zerohedge.com)
Win a private Jungle Cruise tour skippered by John Lasseter
From late 1977 through spring 1978, John Lasseter, before becoming chief creative officer at Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios and principal creative advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering, worked at Disneyland, and was a skipper on the Jungle Cruise attraction. Recently, a search for a photo of John skippering the Jungle Cruise came up empty. Surely there must be a photo of Skipper John somewhere? To find one, Pixar has created a contest: the first person to submit a verifiable photo of John as the skipper of the Jungle Cruise from 1977 will win a trip for 4 to the grand opening of Cars Land at Disney California Adventure in summer 2012, and a ride on the Jungle Cruise skippered by none other than John himself!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpW7bxjCn60[/youtube]
For details on how to submit, visit Johnofthejungle.com or the official Disney•Pixar Facebook page
Official D23 Announcements Focus Mainly on Pixar
For those of you who missed out on Disney’s fan fest, D23, the studio provided us with a recap which we will run intact below. But we know what you really care about is what was said and shown about next year’s The Avengers. Well, there were some clips, another blindingly fast set of clips. According to a report over at Newsrama these included “a conversation between Tony Stark and Loki — with Tony Stark notably appearing behind a bar. Stark details the Avengers lineup — ‘a couple of master assassins, a demigod, and a living legend that actually lives up a legend’ — and Loki retorts back, ‘I have an army.’ ‘We have a Hulk,’ Stark replies.
“The montage sequence also included a monologue from Fury, detailing the purpose behind the Avengers — that they were organized to take on the threats that S.H.I.E.L.D. can’t.”
Bleeding Cool added, “In the clip, Loki is shown trapped in a cage on the helicarrier. It’s a cage built to hold The Hulk, and he’s told that if he’s too much trouble, they’ll just drop it out of the botttom of the helicarrier, 30,000 feet to the ground below. Maria Hill and Steve Rogers watch from the bridge on a monitor while Tony Stark and Nick Fury step up to Loki and have a little threatening banter with him.”
“At the start of Feige’s presentation,” Newsarama continued, “a reel was shown of the five previous Marvel Studios films — Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk (no Edward Norton footage was shown), Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger. The clips focused on the interconnectivity of the movies, scenes like Tony Stark appearing at the end of Incredible Hulk and Johann Schmidt discovering the Tesseract at the beginning of Cap. That vignette ending with the tagline ‘assembly begins next summer’.”
Here’s the formal release: (more…)
Superman: Man of Steel Moved to 2013
Time to adjust your movie calendars as Warner Bros admitted today that having Zack Snyder’s Superman: Man of Steel film for Christmas 2012 was impossible. The new date is now June 14, nestled between two Marvel sequels.
Given the effects-heavy movie’s post-production requirements and the fact is has yet to start shooting, it seems likely that production concerns forced Warner’s hand. It’s also theorized that the testosterone-laden film might not play as well during the holidays given the Academy Award contenders that normally crowd multiplexes during that time of the year. There are also other genre competitors that will suck up screens, complicating the planned release including Warners’ own first installment of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit in addition to Disney’s planned reboot of The Lone Ranger. Back in the far simpler 1970s, Superman the Movie opened for the holidays and performed quite well and Warners was hoping for lightning to strike twice.
Instead, it will now face off against similar competition bringing May 3 with Iron Man 3. DreamWorks’ kid-oriented Turbo precedes Superman on June 7 and is followed by Pixar’s Monster University on June 21 so there’s little live-action, adult competition and now studios know which weekends to avoid. Marvel’s Thor 2 follows a month later on July 26.
The extra six months will afford Snyder plenty of time to perfect the script, which has to be note perfect after the disappointment of this summer’s Green Lantern. It also means producer Christopher Nolan will be done with his The Dark Knight Rises in plenty of time to have a more active role in overseeing the production.
TimeWarner has to release the film in 2013 to satisfy legal obligations arising from the Siegel Estate’s lawsuit that saw elements of the Superman mythos awarded to them, the repercussions of which are being seen this fall in the Superman reboot from TW’s DC Entertainment division.
Two New Cars 2 Clips
While everyone is charging their power ring for this weekend’s premiere of Green Lantern, Pixar is revving up the anticipation engine for the following weekend’s release of Cars 2. They’ve just sent us two video clips to whet your appetites.
The movie from directors John Lasseter and Brad Lewis features the vocal talents of Owen Wilson, Larry the Cable Guy, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Bonnie Hunt, Tony Shaloub, Cheech Marin, Jason Isaacs, Joe Mantegna, Peter Jacobson, Thomas Kretschmann, Guido Quaroni, Lloyd Sherr, Paul Dooley, John Ratzenberger, Jenifer Lewis, Michael Wallis, Katherine Helmond, John Turturro, Franco Nero, Vanessa Redgrave, Eddie Izzard, Bruce Campbell, Michel Michelis, Jeff Gordon, Darrell Waltrip, Lewis Hamilton, and David Hobbs.
Star racecar Lightning McQueen (voice of Owen Wilson) and the incomparable tow truck Mater (voice of Larry the Cable Guy) take their friendship to exciting new places in “Cars 2” when they head overseas to compete in the first-ever World Grand Prix to determine the world’s fastest car. But the road to the championship is filled with plenty of potholes, detours and hilarious surprises when Mater gets caught up in an intriguing adventure of his own: international espionage. Mater finds himself torn between assisting Lightning McQueen in the high-profile race and towing the line in a top-secret mission orchestrated by master British super spy Finn McMissile (voice of Michael Caine) and the stunning rookie field spy Holley Shiftwell (voice of Emily Mortimer). Mater’s action-packed journey leads him on an explosive chase through the streets of Japan and Europe, trailed by his friends and watched by the whole world. The fast-paced fun includes a colorful new all-car cast, complete with menacing villains and international racing competitors.
