But don’t buy your tickets to New York just yet. Iger also told Fortune it may take a while to get on stage. “We’re not demanding speed . . . We’re demanding excellence.”
This move to the stage should come as no surprise to anyone who has seen “Frozen.” Its Broadway bona-fides come from a cast of multiple Tony-award winners and nominees, including Idina Menzel (“Wicked”) and Josh Gad (“The Book of Mormon”). “Frozen’s” #1-selling soundtrack was also penned by Broadway alum Robert Lopez (“Avenue Q” and “The Book of Mormon”) and his wife Kristen Anderson-Lopez.
Indeed, anyone who saw or listened to the opening of “Frozen” and didn’t hear a similarity to “The Lion King” was maybe not paying close enough attention. Ditto if you missed some aping of “Defying Gravity” from “Wicked” in the show-stopper (and shoe-in for the Oscar) “Let It Go.”
And Disney is no newcomer to Broadway. “The Lion King,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Mary Poppins,” and even (yes, Scarlett Robotica) “Newsies” have all been box office hits as stage musicals.
“Frozen” is both a no-brainer as a stage musical and welcome news to all of us who love the film. And, given the box office numbers, that is a lot of us. My eight year old girl is already asking if she can come with me to New York to go see it.
See you on the Great White Way, Olaf!
Disney’s ‘Frozen’ Gets a March Blu-ray/DVD Release Date
Disney’s “Frozen” will be available on Blu-ray, DVD, and On-Demand on March 18, but if that’s not soon enough for you, it will be available on Digital HD February 25.
Yes, that means very soon you can watch the icy film from the privacy of your own home and no one will judge you for singing along with Elsa’s “Let it Go.” Because if you’re anything like me, that song has been in your head since you’ve seen the film. I mostly just sing it in my car, though, so there’s no danger of anyone hearing me.
“Frozen” has made over $300 million at the box office, and that number continues to grow. I don’t see any reason why it won’t be as successful once it’s available for purchase, and the special features make it especially worthwhile for fans of the film:
The Making Of Frozen (Blu-ray, Digital)
D’frosted: Disney’s Journey From Hans Christian Andersen to Frozen (Blu-ray, Digital)
Breaking The Ice – The Real Making Of Frozen (Blu-ray, Digital)
4 Deleted Scenes with introduction by Directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee
Original Theatrical Short – “Get A Horse” (Blu-ray, Digital & DVD)
“Let It Go” Music Videos by Demi Lovato, Martina Stoessel & Marsha Milan Londoh (Blu-ray, Digital & DVD)
Frozen Teaser Trailer (Blu-ray, Digital & DVD)
“Frozen” features the voices of Kristen Bell (“Veronica Mars”) and Idina Menzel (the original Elphaba in Broadway’s “Wicked”), and more than anything else, it’s’ a film about sisters. It also shows what isolation and growing up feeling different can do to a person, as well as having to hide one’s true self.
The songs are all pretty great, but I can’t claim to be a fan of “Fixer Upper.” I have the deluxe edition of the soundtrack, and I like many of the demo songs that never made it into the film much better. Still, I can understand why it was included, story-wise. None of the songs can compare to the show-stopping “Let it Go,” though. The animation of that scene is so brilliant, too. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Disney character so empowered.
You can order “Frozen” now or wait to pick it up March 18. Either way, I loved it, and I think you will, too.
Merida Latest in Disney Portrait Series By Annie Leibovitz
Meet Merida, the latest addition to the Disney Dream Portrait series by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz. Playing the role of the Scottish princess from “Brave” is Jessica Chastain, who received two Oscar nominations for her roles in “The Help” and “Zero Dark Thirty.”
The caption for the image is “Where your destiny awaits,” and it highlights Merida’s love for archery as she sits atop her horse. And that hair. So. Much. Hair.
Chastain is the most recent celebrity to play the role of a Disney character in the series, but quite a few notable names have preceded her. Taylor Swift let her hair down as Rapunzel, Russell Brand brandished his hook as the eponymous Captain Hook, and Olivia Wilde and Queen Latifah portrayed Disney villainesses in earlier portraits.
Other characters represented in the ad campaign are Cinderella (Scarlett Johansson), Pocahantas (Jessica Biel), Tiana (Jennifer Hudson), Ariel (Julianne Moore), Belle and the Beast (Penelope Cruz and Jeff Bridges), and Alice and the Mad Hatter (Beyonce and Oliver Platt), to name a few.
This new image will debut in the February issue of “O-The Oprah Magazine.”
“Under the arrangement, Disney gains distribution and marketing rights to future films, in addition to retaining the ownership rights it secured when it acquired Lucasfilm.
Paramount will continue to be responsible for distribution of the first four films in the franchise and will receive a financial participation on any future films that are produced and released.”
When Disney purchased Lucasfilm last year, they secured the rights to “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones,” but since Paramount distributed the original films, they had to work out the agreement in order for future films to be made.
Yes, future films. With Harrison Ford pushing 70 and the critical fan reception of “Crystal Skull,” this may or may not be music to your ears. And it took nearly 20 years for the last film to be made. What would an Indy film be if, say, Spielberg didn’t direct? (I’ll pause for a moment to let the collective gasps die down.) And what would Indy be if Harrison Ford didn’t want to wear the brown fedora once again?
Well, one could argue it might be like the “Young Indy” television series. Which wasn’t bad. At all. Let’s take a moment and remember Sean Patrick Flanery in the fedora. Let’s take longer than a moment, actually.
But new films would obviously be in a new direction. Would the Indy franchise become like the James Bond series that it was inspired by? New actors playing the title role? I don’t see that going over well with fans.
I’m not one of those that needs more Indy films. I like what we have already. I own the movies. I have the Young Indy series. To paraphrase Ian Malcom from “Jurassic Park,” Disney is so busy thinking about whether or not they could, they’re not thinking about whether or not they should.
We’ll just have to wait and see what Disney does now that they have the rights. Hopefully they will choose . . . wisely.
FROZEN (8 out of 10) – Directed and written by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee; animated feature starring the voices of Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad and Alan Tudyk; rated PG (some action and mild rude humor); in general release, showing in either 2D or 3D; running time: 108 minutes (includes animated short, “Get a Horse!”).
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” – George Santayana
Remember “John Carter,” the supposed “Ishtar” or “Waterworld” of Disney? There are those – yours truly included – who believe that film’s catastrophic, box-office failure can be blamed at least partially on a marketing department that didn’t know how to properly promote the film.
(From the removal of the “of Mars” part from the title to the lack of merchandising tie-ins to the last-minute, desperately idiotic attempts to position it as a “Disney princess” movie … yes, really … it was as if the studio executives and others wanted that movie to flop.)
Those responsible – well, some of them – were sacked as a result of the “John Carter” tanking. But the new marketing regime at Disney isn’t much better, at least judging by the bungled of latest animated feature, “Frozen.”
Were you to rely only on the ads, TV spots and trailers, you’d probably think the film was a cutesy, dopey-looking comedy with more than just a few similarities to last year’s Oscar-winning animated hit, “Brave.” Instead, “Frozen” is a musical-comedy/fantasy. That, apparently, is considered to be a bad thing at Disney, which has conveniently forgotten all the earlier hits they had with such musical animated films as “Beauty & The Beast” (1991), “The Lion King” (1994) and “The Little Mermaid” (1989) – or most recently, with 2010’s “Tangled.”
And yes, this quick-moving, sharply-animated fantasy-comedy will definitely remind some viewers of those classics, as well as that aforementioned revisitation of the Rapunzel fairy tale. In fact, it can be argued that not only is this the best animated work by the Mouse House this year (apologies to “Monsters University”), but it’s also the best big-screen musical to come along in the time period as well (sorry, “Les Miserables”).
“Inspired” by the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Ice Queen,” this one follows a pair of estranged sisters, Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell) and Elsa (the voice of Idina Menzel). Orphaned young and groomed to be rulers of the kingdom of Arendelle, the sisters haven’t spoken to each other in many a moon.
As it turns out, this icy sisterly relationship dates back to a nearly tragic incident, in which Elsa’s cold-weather “powers” nearly killed Anna, who has no memory of that, or most of the worst parts of her childhood.
Now of age, Elsa has been crowned the queen of the kingdom, just in time for those powers to re-emerge with disastrous effects. A panicked Elsa flees into the mountain, but now before she accidentally plunges Arendelle into a new Ice Age. (Thankfully, it’s not the type of cretinous one popularized by the inexplicably popular Fox Animated movie series.)
Anna, who blames herself for Elsa’s predicament, sets off to find her sister and restore the more normally, summery weather to the kingdom. Luckily, she has help from Kristoff (Jonathan Groff, from TV’s “Glee”), an ice “entrepreneur,” and his faithful reindeer steed, Sven.
But it’s a race against time, as the storms are getting worse and some nefarious forces from inside and outside the kingdom are plotting a hostile takeover.
Admittedly, there are a few tell-tale signs that this is yet another Disney “salvage” job, akin to “Brave” (in which Pixar veteran Brenda Chapman was replaced at the directing helm) and “Ratatouille” (in which Brad Bird replaced another Pixar veteran). This time, it’s Jennifer Lee, of last year’s “Wreck-It Ralph,” who was brought in to introduce more action and more funny.
Given how cohesive and complete the story and the whole project are, she and co-scripter/co-director Chris Buck (2007’s “Surf’s Up”) worked well together. It certainly helps that they have such a sterling voice cast, which is refreshingly free of the vocal “stunt casting” that brought down more than a few big-screen cartoons, and several catchy, hummable songs – courtesy music producer Kristen Anderson-Lopez
Instead, their stars are the multitalented Bell, Groff and Menzel (a Tony Award winner, for Broadway’s “Wicked”), who do their own singing, as well as comedian Josh Gad, who gets welcome laughs and rarely rankles as the voice of a wisecracking snowman named Olaf.
By the way, both the 2D and 3D showings of “Frozen” are also playing with the latest, modern-day cartoon short starring the beloved Mickey Mouse, “Get a Horse!” The action-comedy sees our hero teaming with old friends Horace Horsecollar, Clarabelle Cow and others to take on his familiar nemesis, Peg-Leg Pete, who’s kidnapped Minnie Mouse.
The clever and brilliantly animated short plays with perspective, color (it stars in black-and-white then transitions to color), digital dimension and traditional cel-painted animation, and it has more laughs in its scant six minutes than most of the allegedly “comedies” Hollywood has released this year.
Jerk-bot, better known in human form as Jeff Michael Vice, can be heard reviewing films, television programs, comics, books, music and other things as part of The Geek Show Podcast (www.thegeekshowpodcast.com), as well as be seen reviewing films as part of Xfinity’s Big Movie Mouth-Off (www.facebook.com/BigMovieMouthOff).
TRAILER: Disney’s ‘Maleficent’ Teaser Released Today
Disney has released to us a carefully choreographed 85 seconds of “Maleficent” footage, and I am officially on board for this film.
I had a bit of a goth problem in the 90’s and was raised on Disney and fairy tales, so of course I love Maleficent. The announcement of a live action film left me hesitantly excited, but between past set photos and now this teaser, I’m confidently excited.
The film is a directorial debut for Robert Stromberg, but his credits as a visual effects artist are outstanding (“Pan’s Labyrinth”!). I know the general attitude towards Ms. Jolie can fluctuate from day to day, but she looks positively brilliant here. The film is set to be released in the US on May 30, 2014.
This new string of Mickey Mouse cartoons has been nothing short of exciting. I get giddy every time I see that a new one has been released, and this newest one blew me away. Halloween themed for the month of October, Ghoul Friend gives us things I never expected to see in a Mickey Mouse short…
Namely, Zombie Goofy.
It’s an image that some might have a problem with, but I can tell you right now, this is something my kids would be dying to see. I can’t wait to show them.
Star Wars: Rebels had their first moving images premiere.
There’s not really much to reveal other than the fact that it looks visually stunning. And I do believe that’s a reasonably faithful recreation of the opening shot of A New Hope… It seems like Disney is taking the mandate to get back to the roots of Star Wars seriously.
I’m confident this show will do well with kids, but I do think they’re underestimating how much kids love prequel era stuff.
Don’t expect any more info about Rebels until Pablo Hidalgo gives his presentation on the show at NYCC this coming weekend.
Star Wars: Tiny Death Star Announced by NimbleBit and Disney
iOS and Android game developers NimbleBit have just announced a partnership with Disney to create a new 8-bit style game called Tiny Death Star. Here’s what Disney has to say:
The Empire needs your help! In collaboration with LucasArts and Tiny Tower creators NimbleBit, Disney Mobile introduces Star Wars™: Tiny Death Star™, a new game for mobile devices. Live life on the dark side and join Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader on a mission to attract Galactic bitizens, run intergalactic businesses, and build an all-new Death Star. Construct unique Star Wars themed locations to attract iconic characters and species to your space station in this 8-bit style game. Star Wars: Tiny Death Star will soon be available worldwide.
NimbleBit’s very popular mobile games include the recently released Pocket Trains as well as Nimble Quest, Pocket Planes, and the classic Tiny Tower (all iOS links because I am biased). These games all feature a charming 8-bit art style with characters referred to as Bitizens. The Star Wars Bitizens seen in the teaser image look like a lot of fun. Nimblebit’s games generally start a player out small and they must progress over a long period of time by unlocking various things to grow their little world of sorts.
I am personally a huge fan of NimbleBit’s games and am very excited to see how this will turn out. I wonder just how the gameplay will work for this title, hopefully it will combine the tower building aspects of Tiny Tower with the expansion elements of Pocket Trains and Pocket Planes. Maybe there will even be some combat similar to Nimble Quest. The possiblities are pretty awesome. This is great news for the little 4 person team at NimbleBit, congrats guys!
If you’ve seen the Frozen teaser trailer you’re probably wondering to yourself the same thing everyone else that has seen the trailer wonders:
“That looks cute, but what’s it all about?”
Well, wonder no longer because, Disney has released the full trailer for their next full length animation to be released Thanksgiving 2013. It looks like another take on the Disney fairly tale formula with some light hearted Romantic Comedy elements thrown in for good measure. Take a look at the trailer and then sound off in the comments:
