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TV Wars
Mickey Mouse Assimilated By Hulu Aliens
The extraterrestrials at Hulu have staged another coup in their bid to take over television. Disney has struck up a deal with the online video site, meaning we get ABC shows now. More » -
trade roundup
Swine Flu Can Stop a Spaceship, But Not Sex and the City
News from the Sex and the City front, a new Disney comedy sounds annoying (and already done), swine flu does its worst damage yet, and another actor picks up a trident. More » -
defamer connections
Happy Endings Offered to Disney, Warners Execs
The Age of the Easily Expensed Job-Perk (Assistant: "You want me to submit a receipt that says, 'Lunch withhookerRatner?'" Agent: "Yeah, that's fine. Throw 'er in there with the rest...") are long over. More » -
dreamworks
Ron Meyer's Pissed: A DreamWorks and Disney Wedding Album
Disney and DreamWorks today sent out official confirmation of their shotgun wedding, issuing a release around town raising more questions about its relationship than it answers. More » -
pr
'Shopaholic' Stunt Turns Woman Against Woman In Brutal Ice-Chipping Stiletto War
If you still don't agree that Isla Fisher might be cursed, we've got publicity-stunt proof just in from the Garden State. More » -
wtf
Disney Eggs: They're Eggs. By Disney.
We have rarely been as confused or disturbed by anything in our lives as we are by the new "Disney Eggs," which we discovered via a commercial break during the fourth hour of Today. [Jezebel] -
layoffs
Today In We're Screwed: Disney-ABC TV Lays Off 400
Disney-ABC TV president Anne Sweeney sent out one of those stomach-dropping memos today, informing employees that 400 would be let go—from every division, and running all the way up the flagpole. It's after the jump. More » -
the chronicles of narnia
Fox Willing To Take Magical, Expensive Trip To 'Narnia'
As we predicted last month, Fox has stepped up to take the reins of the Narnia franchise steered into a costly anthropomorphic wall by Disney. Here's the scoop from Variety (including what they got wrong): More » -
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the chronicles of narnia
How Disney Killed Off Its Billion-Dollar 'Narnia' Franchise
Disney announced today that it will not continue filming the Chronicles of Narnia series, prematurely snuffing an enormous franchise that the studio had clearly positioned as its Harry Potter. Here's why we're not surprised. -
decorations
Zac Efron: The Fruity Keepsake Ornament
Zac Efron's holiday decorations are a decidedly grownups-only affair, his tree festively adorned with inflatable party sheep and a fine misting of pudenda glitter—but if there's children around, perhaps this ornament is more appropriate. -
awards
'WALL-E' Wins Top Marks From Obese, Smoothie-Slurping Members Of L.A. Critics Assn.
Despite our best efforts to the contrary by having a Vons worker plunge an inoculation into our arm, we doubt we'll avoid the awards fever epidemic that hits our area this time of year. And how can we not, when historical precedent is being set: That's right. The Los Angeles Critics Association—voting via touchscreen from their Barcalounger hovercraft—have declared that Disney-PIXAR's WALL-E has succeeded in capturing their plaque-encrusted hearts. It's the first animated film in history to receive such an honor, yet didn't quite make the grade when placed against its peers in the Best Animated Film category. (That honor went to Israel's Waltz With Bashir.) If their decision seems unusual, it's not without precedent, as THR points out the group did something similar in 2000 when it gave Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon its top overall honors, but recognized Magical Flying Bamboo Warriors in the Best Kung-Fu Movie That Played Fast and Loose with the Laws of Physics category. More » -
the jonas brothers
5 Suggestions For Improving the Generally Hideous 'Jonas Brothers Concert Movie' Poster
The recently released poster for the Jonas Brothers' upcoming concert movie — otherwise referred to as Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience — has been the subject of intense scrutiny and debate today around Defamer HQ. On one hand, its undercurrents of everything from purity-ringed privilege to downmarket Beatlemania convey just the kind of "phenomenon" vibe Disney intends. On the other, you've got three kids dressed like bums with expensive luggage crowding into a puddle-jumper. For now, anyway, critical mass wins out; here's a case to be made for the latter. More » -
disney
Thousands of Drunken Co-Worker Trysts in Jeopardy as Industry Cuts Back Holiday Parties
The odds that you remember the drunken, depraved glories of your employer's past holiday parties are virtually nil, so most of Hollywood shouldn't be too upset today to hear how the recession-to-be is affecting this year's big industry fetes. Variety reports that Disney and Viacom won't be celebrating at all, while other studios are scaling back their own events and even awards-season premieres to the extent their needy talent will allow. And if the global economic meltdown didn't feel like a crisis before, wait until you hear how the caterers will be hit: More » -
pixie dust
Just How Hot Is The New Tinker Bell, And How Much Of A Perv Are You For Thinking So?
The Village Voice has gotten a good look at Disney's new straight-to-DVD Tinker Bell (now in 3-D with speaking capabilities!), and declares the 2008 version of the spritely heroine—the original of whom is wrongly rumored to be modeled on Marilyn Monroe—to be a platitudinous pixie snore. They also find her extremely "sexy/creepy...a chubby-cheeked, slightly infantilized adolescent with the body of a grown woman. She sports the skimpiest dress in the movie." More » -
zac efron
Gay Men And 13-Year-Old Girls Unite In Protest Against Cut Zac Efron Shower Scene
The big weekend box office for High School Musical 3 proves that Disney knows not to mess with a winning thing, and why should it? The series's profitable formula (40% Bollywood chastity, 35% 'N Sync b-sides, and 25% total gayness) has paid off in spades. Perhaps, then, the threat of tinkering with this equation was what Disney had in mind when they cut what was apparently a Zac Efron-led musical sequence in a boys' group shower (!), the existence of which came to light after an Ebay seller included pictures of the number in a cache of HSM3 photos. What cinematic contribution to homoerotica was lost when a cruel executive axed "Lather Up, Y'all"? Gaze upon the additional pictures after the jump, and muse upon what might have been. More » -
zac efron
Disney's Cable Ghetto Now Hollywood's Richest Blockbuster Incubator
Disney's back-ordered fleet of Brinks trucks had better arrive soon: High School Musical 3: Senior Year is tracking for a $38 million opening weekend, with Beverly Hills Chihuahua anticipating another $6 million in its fourth week of release. Those grosses would likely land the all-ages tandem together in the Top 5 at the box office — the first time two non-Pixar Disney titles have shared that space since 1994. Useless trivia? We think not — and we aren't alone. More » -
Hormones
Miley Cyrus Sends Hidden Signals To Underwear Model Boyfriend With Tongue
She may have lost her hot fudge virginity recently to a towering ice cream sundae, but Miley Cyrus swears she has yet to round the real bases with her underwear model boyfriend, Justin Gaston. (Which reminds us of that old joke: Q. What's the difference between regular male models and underwear models? A. Ball separators!) All that isn't to say she hasn't been fully supportive of his career, however, clapping wildly as her man struts down the runway, showing off the latest advancements in 2(x)ist's proprietary JunkFlex™ technology. But according to some eyewitnesses at a recent LA Fashion Week event, Cyrus got a little carried away, exposing her tongue suggestively (see photo) and plotting a hot night of bible-passage-exchange with her beau following the show. Page Six reports: More » -
johnny depp
Is Captain Jack Sparrow Plundering Disney For $54 Mil?
In Johnny Depp, Disney found an unlikely Mickey messiah. His once-dicey-seeming turn as a scenery-chewing eyeliner junkie was a risk worth taking, it turned out, and it wasn't long before Pirates of the Caribbean's staggering grosses had execs' eyeballs rolling back into their heads, replaced by spinning gold bullion. Resisting the urge to stuff their single biggest revenue generator into a chest and throw away the key until Depp had completed filming on Pirates 4 through 18, the company instead lay out a buffet of properties and encouraged the actor to help himself—and he did, committing to parts like the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland; The Lone Ranger's sidekick Tonto; and, in his biggest stretch to date, the titular transportation device of Jerry Bruckheimer's thrilling Monorail: The Motion Picture. Still, we haven't yet seen the last of Captain Jack Sparrow, a role Depp is reportedly revisiting for a $56 million paycheck. From the Daily Mail: More » -
beverly hills chihuahua
45 Percent of Critics Can't Be Wrong About 'Beverly Hills Chihuahua'
We said it once, but it bears repeating in streets and valleys far and wide: It's opening day for Beverly Hills Chihuahua! ZOMG, right? At least we thought so, but despite our all-consuming anticipation and lobbying on its behalf, Defamer's fevered attempts to break down the Disney wall for an early viewing were met with repeated, unappreciative radio silence. And because the world's first review — a rave, natch — seemed suspiciously exempt from the studio's embargo, it's only now that we can reliably study the critical spectrum. And just as we thought: It's almost half-good! Or, more realistically, the reviews catalogued at Rotten Tomatoes are just about split, but that can't deter our optimism — even the slags after the jump have us clamoring for quitting time: More » -
johnny depp
First Look! Disney Mule Johnny Depp Reviving Tonto For New, 'Lone Ranger'-Starved Generation
With infidel Mickey Mouse still in hiding after last week's death-sentence fatwa, Disney appears to be rolling the dice on a bold rebranding of sorts. Behold — Disney Depp (née Johnny), whose anchoring of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise yielded yesterday's news of not only Pirates 4, but also the star's attachment as Tim Burton's Mad Hatter in a live-action Alice in Wonderland and as Tonto in a revival of The Lone Ranger. The announcement was made Wednesday in Disney's marathon State of the Mouse Biennial, putting its jittery investors at ease, its fans in an uproar and the press into some kind of overwhelmed coma. Johhny Depp? As Tonto? In Josh Groban's incredulous words, "Really?!" More » -
miley cyrus
Miley Cyrus Finds Her Head Has Grown Too Big For 'Hannah Montana' Wig
For many girls, turning sixteen is a landmark event that signals the end of being a kid and the onset of new, adult behavior. Why, just check out how tween queen Miley Cyrus is preparing for the occasion: she's kissing girls, eating her clothes off, dating an underwear model, and ready to party with thousands of her favorite gays! There's only one inconvenient reminder of her childhood left: her Disney hit Hannah Montana, which TMZ says Cyrus is keen to leave behind by any means necessary: More » -
mickey mouse
Mickey Mouse in Hiding as Muslim Cleric Issues Fatwa Urging His Death
Mere hours after officially declining to buy into the Borat franchise, Abu Dhabi's new billion-dollar film enterprise may soon rebuff yet another burgeoning cultural nemesis: Mickey Mouse. The magazine Israel Today reports this week that a Muslim cleric has issued a fatwa urging the murder of the Disney mascot, "whom he characterized as an agent of Satan sent to corrupt young minds." It's not just that his kids keep asking to watch Fantasia during Ramadan, either, but something far more fundamentally unsound: More » -
dwayne johnson
Dwayne Johnson To Battle Theme-Park Obsolescence Gnomes in 'Tomorrowland' Movie
Apparently looking to expand the modest scope that exploited its Pirates of the Caribbean attraction as a nearly eight-hour, $3 billion-grossing trilogy, Disney now plans to mine an entire portion of Disneyland for the franchise of the future. Literally: The studio has reportedly commissioned a pair of writers to develop the script for a film based on Tomorrowland, with Dwayne Johnson attached to star as a minimum-wage ride operator whose fantasies of updating Star Tours lead to a thrilling adventure through the Lucas/Disney black hole of bureaucracy. Or... something. If Disney knows, its overlords aren't talking: More » -
beverly hills chihuahua
Critic: 'Beverly Hills Chihuahua' Breaks Shallow New Ground in Mexican-American Relations
Photographic evidence of last Saturday's dogs-only preview of Beverly Hills Chihuahua has arrived at Defamer HQ, and it looks like precisely the kind of shrill, infernal canine redoubt we thought might occur when more than 300 chihuahuas and their owners piled into the Fine Arts Theater. The user reviews to date are positive overall ("IT WAS THE BEST MOVE [sic] EVER !!!! THANK YOU !!!" wrote one satisfied small-dog exploiter], but only trustworthy to the extent you can rely on the taste of people who stuff diminutive pooches into makeshift sweaters, tuxedos and other garments for a day on on the town. More » -
Beauty and the Veep
Walt Disney Presents: The Sarah Palin Story
Last week, actor Matt Damon spoke out against Sarah Palin, comparing the possibility that she could become president to "a really bad Disney movie." Palin's life does seem to parallel that of the classic doe-eyed Disney beauty who ventures outside of her small village and fulfills her destiny to become queen. (Though, no matter what you think of her politics, it's not fair to reduce any woman to the fairy tale archetypes on display in Disney movies: the pure and pretty damsel in distress and the vain, cold-hearted villainess.) But with that said, just what would the Disney version of Sarah Palin's story look like? We scoured the Disney vault and created a vision of Sarah Palin's happily ever after rise to the White House. Clip above. [Jezebel] -
beverly hills chihuahua
Own the First Dog on Your Block to See 'Beverly Hills Chihuahua'
As noted in this morning's Fall Movie Hell forecast, the world's breathless anticipation of Beverly Hills Chihuahua is nearing its Oct. 3 payoff. But now Disney is offering a special class of Angeleno the world's first look at the finished film, and we have to admit, some of us are more than a little jealous: More » -
mickey mouse
Early Disney Legal Department Revealed To Be A Mickey Mouse Operation
The LAT has a fascinating story today about Gregory S. Brown, a 51-year-old former Disney researcher who's lived in the same one-bedroom apartment in Hollywood for the last 20 years. Brown had once tried and failed to take over Harvey Comics. In doing his research, he discovered an old Ghostbusters lawsuit in which an overlooked copyright claim had allowed Fatso, Casper's sidekick and a dead-ringer for the movie's logo, to lapse into the public domain. Armed with his new knowledge of such loopholes, he returned to the Disney vaults to find similar cases. A failure to renew the copyright on the 1933 Mickey Mouse cartoon The Mad Doctor led to a business selling knockoff cels from that film. Disney sued him, and won a $500,000 settlement. Now something of an early-animation copyright expert, Brown went back to the stacks to research his defense; it was then that he learned something truly astonishing: Thanks to some shoddy legalese, just about anyone could move Disney's cheese. More » -
trade roundup
'Price Is Right' Horny For Younger Eyeballs
·First they try to Poochie-up Ebert & Other Guy, now this: In a bid to appeal to a younger audience, Beauty and the Geek host Mike Richards has been hired to take over showrunning duties on The Price is Right. Which strikes us as just plain wrong: white trash grandmas and TPIR go together like mayonnaise and cold hot dogs. (But if that's really the plan, they might want to start with canning Drew Carey, who we literally noticed nodding off during a not-particularly-gripping round of Mountain Climber recently.) [Variety] More » -
The Princess and the Frog
Walt Disney Proudly Presents 'The Princess and the Frog and the Racist Firefly'
As if we weren't soiling our pants enough already in anticipation of Disney's Beverly Hills Chihuahua and its high-kicking chorus of furry Mexican slurs, now comes a short teaser from the upcoming The Princess and The Frog—a return to hand-drawn animation for the studio, and the first to feature an African-American princess in the lead. Set in New Orleans, the jazz-era musical is written and directed by the team who brought us classics like Aladdin and The Little Mermaid, features songs by Randy Newman, and—if this teaser is any indication—stars a toothless firefly that seems to have fluttered in accidentally from the set of Song of the South 2: Cajun Vacation. Unfortunately, the feature won't be in theaters until Christmas 2009. Haw-haw! Id looks like dis could take some TAHM! More » -
miley cyrus
Condom Company Recruits Miley Cyrus As Another Make-Out Session Is Caught On Camera
Astonishing as it is, Miley Cyrus — the little tween queen ofsexy “private” pictures that keep somehow keep becoming public — is currently at the center of three separate scandalous stories. Last week, the 15-year old Jesus-loving and shirt-eating mini-millionaire not only accidentally (of course!) found herself the victim of an iPhone hacker who published naughty wet t-shirt shower photos of her on the web, in addition to being the provacateur of a YouTube revenge video against Disney rival Selena Gomez. But there is so much more! Not only has Miley instructed her publicist to apologize for her role in said video, but the belly-baring icon of all young Christians has just been targeted as Lifestyles Condoms’ newest spokeswoman because a brand rep feels she’s “relatable to the afflicted set,” and another clever blogger has unveiled yet another borderline-scandalous series of photos featuring the husky-voiced star getting hot and heavy with yet another ex-boyfriend — and we can’t help noticing just how well-timed this particular “leak” is with regard to enemy Gomez’ recent hook-up to that man-boy in the middle of their rift, Nick Jonas: More » -
miley cyrus
Miley Cyrus Vs. Selena Gomez: 'Mean Girls' Comes To Life In 'Scheisty' Video Attack
We didn’t actually think she had it in her, but the world’s most rapidly maturing 15-year old, Miley Cyrus, is behaving like, well, a 15-year old for once. Just as reports surfaced that her rival in tween porn and Disney affection Selena Gomez may be dating Cyrus’ ex-boyfriend, we learn that the Battle Of The Tweens has been going on far longer than we thought. About a month ago, the wet t-shirt contestant decided to team up with her BFF and film a YouTube video mocking Selena and her partner in underage midriff-baring crime, Demi Lovato. Have we lost you? Not to worry! The only two things you really need to know before watching this oddly hilarious clip are: we’re slightly worried Miley has found her daddy’s liquor cabinet, and Demi Lovato is the next Demi Moore. More » -
miley cyrus
As Miley Cyrus Prepares To Go Nude In New Role, Tween Rivals Challenge Her To A Strip-Off
After many months spent posing topless in glossies, making out with girls, and staging her very own wet t-shirt photo shoots, Miley Cyrus is finally giving up on that whole innocent tween image perfected by Disney and is officially turning into Lindsay Lohan. As MSNBC reports, Cyrus is supposedly “really interested” in nabbing a role in Undiscovered Gyrl, a screen adaptation of an as-yet-unreleased novel written by Naomi Watts’ ex-fiancé. So what does the role of “Gyrl” entail? The plot of the novel revolves around an 18-year old blogger whose interests include alcohol abuse, sleeping around with as many men as possible, and reckless partying. Naturally, a part like this will require several nude scenes, meaning the 15-year old belly dancer and tween icon would finally get paid for revealing her naughty bits this time around, should she get the part. But stripping down and playing bad girls on-screen isn’t the only sign that Miley is Lindsay 2.0 — thanks to her newfound (nudity-based) fame, the underage millionaire has already launched a nasty war of words against her competition, morphing into a real-live Mean Girl overnight: More » -
disney's black princess
Why Is Disney's First Black Princess Such A Challenge?
Disney's been working on a "black princess" movie for a while now. In March of last year, the company announced that production had begun on the film, a fairy tale to be called The Frog Princess featuring Maddy, a black chambermaid working for a spoiled white Southern debutante. A voodoo priestess fairy godmother helps Maddy win the heart of a white prince, after he rescues her from the clutches of a voodoo magician. Clichéd? Stereotypical? Yeah, that's what many people thought. So even though the film was slated for a 2009 release, Disney went back to the drawing board. According to a report by Arifa Akbar in today's Independent: [Jezebel]
















































