ARTWORK & VIDEO: Disney Reveals AVATAR-Land Model & Gives First Look at Bio-luminescent Plants

Image_WDW_AVATAR_2015_02_26

During a recent meeting with James Cameron, the team at Walt Disney Imagineering and Disney Parks management showed Cameron the latest progress on the AVATAR land being built at Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park. Above you’ll see the latest model for the land, and below you’ll see a video where Cameron take s a look at some of the nighttime bio-luminescent effects guests will find in the land:

If you look closely around the 0:11 mark, you’ll see artwork for some sort of drummer entertainment group for the land in the background. Besides that, there is a lot of blurred-out or hard to see plans hanging on the walls behind them.

AVATAR1

What we can see looks pretty interesting. What do you think?

PHOTOS: First Section of New Magic Kingdom Hub Opens to Guests

The first section of the new Magic Kingdom hub opened to guests this afternoon, revealing many months of work that has gone into turning the old waterway space into expanded paths and nighttime show viewing space for the park:

IMG_0184

The side of the hub with Casey’s Corner is now open to guests, no word on when the other side might open

IMG_0185

I would think this is hub west since it faces west, but this sign isn’t helping

IMG_0186

The area with AstroTurf will be used for FastPass+ fireworks viewing

IMG_0187

Wishes! is presented by Pandora jewelry, so the sections is sponsored as well

IMG_0188

IMG_0190

Some railings are still missing today

IMG_0191

A great fountain flanks both sides of the hub now

IMG_0192

The smaller hub statues that once surrounded Partners are now spread out around the hub

IMG_0193

IMG_0194

Lots of path space to make traversing the park easier

IMG_0195

IMG_0196

A look back at the viewing area

IMG_0197

IMG_0198

The views of the Castle from the section are really nice

IMG_0199

Some more railings that need to be installed

IMG_0200

WHICH HUB IS IT?!?!

VIDEO: Trailer For “Frozen Fever” Premieres

Walt Disney Animation Studios just released the first trailer for “Frozen Fever.”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQRLVxZHKPs]

In “Frozen Fever,” it’s Anna’s birthday and Elsa and Kristoff are determined to give her the best celebration ever, but when Elsa catches a cold, her powers may put more than just the party at risk.

“Frozen Fever” will be shown before Disney’s upcoming live version of “Cinderella” which will open on March 13th, 2015.

New Ducktales Animated Series Coming to Disney XD in 2017

DuckTalesOMG

DUCKBURG (February 25, 2015) — An all-new “DuckTales,” an animated comedy series based on the Emmy Award-winning series treasured by a generation of viewers, has been ordered for launch in 2017 on Disney XD channels around the world. Set to be produced by Disney Television Animation, the new series will again star Disney’s enduringly popular characters: Scrooge McDuck, his grandnephews Huey, Dewey and Louie, and Donald Duck. The announcement was made today by Marc Buhaj, Senior Vice President, Programming and General Manager, Disney XD.

Buhaj said, “DuckTales’ has a special place in Disney’s TV animation history, it drew its inspiration from Disney Legend Carl Barks’ comic books and through its storytelling and artistic showmanship, set an enduring standard for animated entertainment that connects with both kids and adults. Our new series will bring that same energy and adventurous spirit to a new generation.”

The new series’ adventures will once again take viewers along as Scrooge McDuck, his curious and mischief-making grandnephews — Huey, Dewey and Louie — and the optimistic yet temperamental Donald Duck embark on high-flying adventures worldwide. Other beloved characters slated to be in the new stories are: Duckworth, Gyro Gearloose, Launchpad McQuack, Flintheart Glomgold, Magica DeSpell & Poe, Ma Beagle and the Beagle Boys (Burger Beagle, Bouncer Beagle), Mrs. Beakley and Webbigail Vanderquack.

A generation’s seminal cartoon, the Emmy Award-winning “DuckTales” led the daily syndicated cartoon block “The Disney Afternoon” with 100 episodes produced by Disney Television Animation from 1987-90. An animated theatrical film, “DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp,” premiered in 1990.

The original “DuckTales” is currently available on WATCH Disney Channel, an app that allows consumers to watch on tablet, phones, computer and set top boxes.

Disney Interactive features several “DuckTales” themed items in the Disney Infinity toy box. A music video of the familiar “DuckTales” theme song (with real ducks) has amassed over six million views since September 2014 on the popular YouTube channel “Oh My Disney.”

In the U.S., Disney XD is seen on a 24-hour, advertiser supported network that reaches over 80 million households via its basic cable and satellite affiliates. In total, there are 31 Disney XD channels available in 25 languages around the world. Disney Television Animation is part of the Disney ABC Television Group at The Walt Disney Company.

WonderGround Art Gallery to Expand in Marketplace Co-Op This March, The Sign Shop Being Added

Last summer, the Marketplace Co-Op opened at Downtown Disney Marketplace in Florida. This flexible space location serves as a testing ground for new retail shop concepts, products and guest experiences. Shortly after it opened in June 2014, a small fixture was added that featured products from the WonderGround Gallery at Downtown Disney District in California. The WonderGround Gallerysectio of the store will be expanding beginning in early March 2015, into the space that formerly belonged to Beautifully Disney.

wonderground_logo

To celebrate this newest addition, you’re invited to attend a grand opening event on March 6-7. A few artists will be making appearances both days including Jasmine Beckett Griffith, Robert Jimenez and Jerrod Maruyama.

WGGDTD8575925-613x613

Moving into WonderGround Gallery’s former space is The Sign Shop, which will carry an assortment of Disney Parks-inspired signs similar to ones offered at Disney Centerpiece and at select Art of Disney locations. Some new items will be released including a Hollywood Tower Hotel sign by Disney Design Group Artist Richard Terpstra, a mermaid image by Tony Harris, and some unique photography pieces by Michael Lewis Glover (he will also be attending the grand opening weekend).

WGGDTD8575926-613x613

Make it to the Grand Opening event on March 6-7 if you can!

Pirates of the Caribbean at the Magic Kingdom To Be Closed All Summer Due to Safety Concerns

We kind of knew this was coming, but it seems Pirates of the Caribbean at the Magic Kingdom will be closed May 11th through September 25th, 2015.

Photo by Joe Hogarty, WDWNT.com

Photo by Joe Hogarty, WDWNT.com

A two day refurbishment of the attraction this week allowed Disney to assess issues with the new boats & the ride track and create a game plan to fix the system, removing safety concerns.

Last summer, a guest who had his hand outside of the boat lost tips of his ring and pinky fingers as the then-recently installed new boats rubbed against the older ride track. Guests were not permitted to sit in the last row of the Pirates of the Caribbean boats on either coast as Disney investigated the issues.

Beyond safety concerns, the new boats have been problematic with many taking on water or severe damage while riding along the ride-path. Guests have complained about getting much wetter on the ride than in years past, as the boats roughly passed through the turn in the track following the ride’s one drop.

Rumors have also insisted that some scene changes were coming to the ride in late-2015/early 2016, so it is unclear if any of those changes will be made now or wait for another refurbishment down the road. We’ll just have to wait and see on that.

2/27/15 Marvel News Mash-Up (Avengers, More Spider-Man Drama, ETC.)

“Avengers: Age Of Ultron” Official Movie Poster

PZYwQRv

Here is the first official movie poster for “Avengers: Age Of Ultron” with all of the cast front and center.

If you have a magnifying glass, this poster also confirms that Anthony Mackie is reprising his role as The Falcon from “Captain America: Winter Soldier.” Both Thor alumni Idris Elba (Heimdall) and Stellan Skarsgård (Dr. Erik Selvig) are also returning from proof of their cast names appearing on the poster.  I tried my best to zoom in on it and highlight it below.

Capturecdsdsdsd

Definitely glad to see that Captain America, the leader of the team, is highlighted in this poster as opposed to the original “Avengers” poster where he was way in the background and they basically made Robert Downey Jr. the focus:

avengers-movie-poster-1

Funny thing is that after this official poster was released, Marvel released another poster with Robert Downey Jr. as the focus, just in case:

International-Avengers-Age-of-Ultron-Poster-700x989

“Avengers: Age Of Ultron” Opens on May 1st, 2015.

Robert Downey Jr. Shares His “Iron Man” Character Poster From “Avengers: Age Of Ultron” And Also Hints Of Some Big News Coming Next Week

1139454677053734472

Robert Downey Jr recently revealed through his Twitter account the official character poster for Iron Man from “Avengers: Age Of Ultron.” I am sure this will be the first of many character posters that will eventually make its way into movie theater lobbies.

What is even more exciting is that he teased us that there will be a big announcement next week.

Captureddssds

Of course I couldn’t help but speculate as to what it could be:

  1. Marvel will officially announce that “Spider-Man” will be in “Captain America: Civil War” This is probably the most probable. During the announcement of the Sony and Marvel Spider-Man deal, they announced that Spider-Man will “first appear” in a Marvel movie prior to the new “Spider-Man” movie opening in 2017.
  2. Marvel and Sony will announce that they have cast an actor to play “Spider-Man.” Very possible since “Civil War” starts shooting in April.
  3. “Captain America: Civil War” will be split into two parts. This is wishful thinking on my part. There is so much material in the original Civil War comic book that there is no way that they could come close to being faithful to the original source material. Besides Captain America, Iron Man and hopefully Spider-Man, there is a huge lineup of superheroes involved. Civil War is one group of superheroes against another group of superheroes. You can’t squeeze all of that into one 2 hour movie.
  4. Robert Downey Jr. will announce an extension to his contract with Marvel. Maybe showing up in “Guardians Of The Galaxy 2?” This could somehow tie the Guardians universe with the Avengers so that they could come together for “Avengers: Infinity War.”
  5. New Trailer For “Avengers: Age Of Ultron” revealing “The Vision” for the very first time. This is very likely but definitely last on my list as to what I would prefer to see happen.

We should find out next Thursday and I will definitely let you know.

*And just as I was witting this article, Marvel released the official character poster for The Hulk.

B-yR-iBUAAATdwD

 

Tom Rothman Named New Chairman Of Sony Pictures; Does This Mean “Big Trouble” For “Spider-Man?”

collagedddd

Last week we had possibly the best news ever when it was announced that “Spider-Man” was coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. What a difference a week makes because this week we received some of the worst worst news ever. Tom Rothman is now in charge of Sony Pictures. What makes this such bad news? This guys track record is horrible when it comes to comic book movies and just movies in general. Tom Rothman was originally over at Fox and here are some of the questionable things that he did:

  1. Rothman is rumored to be majorly responsible for all of the hate between Fox and Disney/Marvel.
  2. Rothman was against the movie “X-Men” being made and went out of his way to cut the budget for the film. The first “X-Men” movie was the first superhero movie to reignite the public’s interest in superhero movies after the disastrous “Batman And Robin.” Comic book movie fans owe a lot to this movie.
  3. Rothman was responsible for causing Brian Singer to leave as director of “X-Men: Last Stand” and then he hired Bret Ratner, one of Hollywood’s worst directors. Rothman went onto micromanage the film resulting in the worst X-Men movie ever made.
  4. Rothman had his hands all over “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and forced director Gavin Hood to make changes that he was firmly against. So many changes were made by Rothman to the final movie that Gavin Hood eventually came out and said, “This is not my movie anymore.”
  5. Rothman refused to have any Sentinels in any “X-Men” movies while he was head of the studio.
  6. Rothman was behind the cloud version of Galactus that appeared in “Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer.”
  7. Rothman personally blocked the movie “Deadpool” from ever being made. The movie “Deadpool” was recently announced to be in production but it is mostly because Rothman left.
  8. Rothman was behind the movie release of “Elektra.”
  9. Ridley Scott and James Cameron were going to work together and make a sequel to “Aliens” and Rothman said no and decided to go with “Aliens Vs. Predator” instead.
  10. Rumor is Rothman does not like comic book movies and he only names himself as producer for those comic book movies that guarantee him a huge paycheck and then he tinkers with them and they become a disaster.

It’s not all bad news though. I mentioned last time that with the new “Spider-Man” deal that Marvel has creative control of Spider-Man, which includes the upcoming solo film. Several people pointed out to me that in the press release Sony still has creative control. I found this hard to believe because Sony made the deal with Marvel because they knew they were having trouble with the “Spider-Man” franchise and they wanted to have similar success that the Marvel movies were experiencing. It made me wonder, why would Sony have creative control and why would Marvel agree not to have creative control? I recently read this in Bigassdigest.com and it confirms what I originally stated:

“Everything I have heard is that Marvel is calling most of the shots on this new movie. There’s been a lot of language in the press to help Sony avoid some embarrassment, to make this look less like admitting defeat.“

That sounds more feasible than Marvel not having any creative control and Sony having all of it.

Latino Review goes on to explain this even more in depth:

Avi Arad and Matt Tolomach, producers of the Amazing Spider-Man movies (and Arad being attached to the property since it’s initial sale) are producers for Spider-Man in name only.

We have information from a source suggesting there is no financial involvement whatsoever and no direct creative control over Spidey coming from the old guard. Amy Pascal still has a say in the Mom-and-Pop arrangement she has with Feige, but Disney didn’t want to unite Pearlmutter, Arad and Feige in earnest. This is the solution.

What does that mean? It means Marvel might have a bit more control than we thought. It means the new Spider-Man has been insulated from BOTH Avi Arad and new Sony head, superhero property curse, Tom Rothman.

As I had mentioned previously, there are many things that we will probably never know about the Spider-Man deal that exists with Disney/Marvel and Sony. I am sure that Disney was well aware of any possibility and probably knew that Amy Pascal was going to be replaced and who the likely candidates were. I don’t think they would have agreed to the deal if they did not have certain assurances and could also protect themselves. And I am sure one stipulation was “you wanted our help, don’t interfere in the direction we are taking the character.”

Rant: Seriously, why do corporations sometimes hire the worst possible candidates for high level positions? This guy seems like your typical corporate jerk who takes credit for everything and throws everyone else under the bus when someone is needed to blame. He seems like he thinks he knows better than everyone else and loves to throw his power around. I can never understand why people like this are constantly rewarded. Of all of the atrocities that he was responsible for, there was going to be an Aliens sequel where both Ridley Scott and James Cameron both agreed to be on board and he said no? This man should not even be allowed to work at a 7-Eleven.

Sources: Deadline, Latino Review, Bigassdigest

Preview Of Marvel’s “Star Wars #3”

star-wars-3-cover

Looks like Darth Vader still doesn’t know that Luke Skywalker is actually his son and he still hates his guts. In this issue, Han Solo and Princess Leia commandeer an AT-AT, C3PO has a license to drive the Millennium Falcon and Vader is about to take on the above mentioned AT-AT with a light saber!

star-wars-3-page-1star-wars-3-page-2star-wars-3-page-3

“Star Wars #3” will go on sale on March 11th, 2015.

Source: StarWars.com

First Clear Image Of Marvel’s “Daredevil”

B-gD9SQCMAAtobj

The magazine Film Ink has given us our best look at Daredevil so far by featuring “The Man With No Fear” on it’s front cover.

Rant: We better be seeing the classic red “Daredevil” costume very soon because if he is going to be wearing black pajamas throughout the first season, I’m not watching it. That’s like Batman not having his mask and cowl. That’s not Batman, that is just Bruce Wayne looking for trouble. This costume is fine if this is his first attempt at Daredevil but the character needs to look more like the iconic Daredevil. It makes no sense to be just showing us the black costume in promotions and not just revealing his red costume. Even if this was a motion picture, they would have revealed it by now. Don’t screw this up Marvel, you have a great track record with remaining loyal to the comics and the trailer looks great too.

Here are some of Daredevil’s costume that would be completely acceptable to me:

collagesssss

* Marvel just released this new poster as I was writing this. Well, there is red in there, but not the red I’m looking for.

B-zFLHJUcAAMEqS

Marvel’s “Daredevil” will premier exclusively on Netflix on April 10th, 2015.

Stan Lee Draws An Image Of “Spider-Man” For A Young Fan With Autism

collageffddfdffd

This is a great story. The New York Times reported that Jamel Hunter, an 8 year old boy with autism, was celebrating his birthday with friends and family. Jamel’s favorite hero is Spider-Man and Jamel’s mother went out of her way to have Spider-Man images displayed throughout the birthday party.

Stan Lee read about the story and was moved and wanted to do something to help. Stan Lee is Spider-Man’s creator and he has always played the role of writer, not artist. But Stan decided this one time that he would draw a very special picture of Spider-Man for Jamel. New York Times writer, Michael Wilson, delivered the drawing to Jamel, with Lee’s signature in the corner.

Here are some pictures of Jamel with Stan Lee’s gift:

stan-lee-spidermanstan-lee-draws-super-man-for-jamel-hunter-with-autism-450x225

Source: New York Times

New “Ant-Man” Promo Art

uyCeAc8

Some new promo art for the upcoming Marvel movie “Ant-Man” has recently hit the internet. Lets’ take a look at what we could expect from the movie based on the concept art below.

GsSYgVW 8DHDFrU L4ZE8lG i9fL5ib h5RAXFS P8l0ADC

“Ant-Man” will open on July 17th, 2015.

Sideshow Collectible Corner

“The Hulk” From “Avengers: Age Of Ultron”

902348-hulk-deluxe-011

Sideshow Collectibles and Hot Toys have done it again. Check out this amazingly detailed premium figure of The Incredible Hulk as seen in “Avengers: Age Of Ultron.”

902348-hulk-deluxe-008902348-hulk-deluxe-012902348-hulk-deluxe-001

Sideshow Collectibles and Hot Toys are thrilled to officially present the Hulk Deluxe Sixth Scale Figure Collectible Set from this epic blockbuster!

The movie-accurate collectible figure is specially crafted based on the image of Hulk in Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron. This deluxe set specially features two newly developed angry and screaming Hulk head sculpts with rolling eyeballs, a specially painted muscular body and a newly sculpted interchangeable Hulk smash pose upper body.

The Hulk Deluxe figure is available for pre-order exclusively through Sideshow Collectibles. The cost is $374.99 and expected to ship sometime in the fourth quarter of this year.

That’s it for this time!

Bob Chapek Named Chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts

Bob Chapek has been named Chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, replacing Tom Staggs who is moving up to COO.

Disney Baby Store _Chapek #3

Chapek, who starts his new role today, and reports to both Staggs and company chairman and CEO Bob Iger, has worked for Disney for the past 22 years. He has served as president of Disney Consumer Products since 2011.

runDisney(land Paris): First Disney Running Weekend Coming to Europe

Disneyland Paris announced today (Sunday 22 February 2015) that the popular runDisney event will be coming to Disneyland Paris in September 2016.

In a post on the official Disneyland Paris Facebook account, the rumoured event was finally let out of the bag:

On your marks, set...GO!!!

On your marks, set…GO!!!

It’s official! We’re delighted to announce that we’ll be holding our first ever running weekend from September 23rd to 25th 2016, guaranteeing some sportingly good fun for young and old alike! It’s time to dust off those running shoes and get training! #disneylandparishalf 

With the event still over 18 months away registration signups are not yet live, however, Disneyland Paris is asking people to register interest at http://run.disneylandparis.com/.  With the event being a weekend event, and Disneyland Paris stating the main event is a half marathon, it’s expected that Saturday 24th September 2016 will be a 10k run, with the half marathon being on Sunday 25th September.

Whilst you are unable to register as a runner just yet, you actually are able to book your accommodation package for September 2016 through Disneyland Paris’s website, which usually falls outside of their usual booking timescales.