Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
UP! box-office is flying hiiiiigh !
Believe it or not, but UP! is on its way to become not only one of the highest grossing Pixar movie but ALSO one of the highest grossing Disney movie of all time!!!
With $264 Millions UP! box-office rise above the B.O of: A Bug's life ($162 M), Toy Story ($191 M), Ratatouille ($206 M), Wall-E ($223 M), Cars ($244 M), Toy Story 2 ($245 M), Monsters Inc ($255 M) and The Incredibles ($261 M)! The only Pixar movie with a bigger box-office is Finding Nemo with $339 millions.
Also, UP! already did better than ANY Disney movie of the "new animation era", i.e since The Little Mermaid. Yep, better than Aladdin, Tarzan, Beauty and the Beast, and all the others except the Lion King who did $312 M.
Incredible, isn't it! And, considering that UP! was released only five weeks ago, we can reasonably think that UP! may do better than Nemo or The Lion King. With $339 M and all the upcoming summer blockbusters (Harry Potter, etc...) Nemo record may be hard to beat, but i wouldn't be surprised if UP! finally beat the $312 M of The Lion King.
Now, remember all these "prophets" who keep saying some weeks ago that with such a story (old man, etc...) UP! could be Pixar first failure? And not to mention toy manufacturer Thinkway who decided to don't produce ANY toy inspired by UP!
What a clear vision these guys have! Congratulations, folks! Next year, please keep for you any prophecy to avoid being ridiculous!
Anyway, i'm curious to see how long UP! will keep flying high, and of course i send my best congratulations (and without irony, this time) to Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, John Lasseter, and everybody at Pixar who worked on this wonderful movie!
Picture: copyright Disney Pixar
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Disney World monorails crash, killing 21-year-old monorail driver - Edited with crash explanation video
Very sad news from WDW today. For the first time in 38 years a deadly accident happened between two monorails and a 21 years old monorail driver died.
"A monorail train at Walt Disney World crashed into the back of another train early Sunday, killing one driver, according to an amusement park spokesman and a witness interviewed by CNN.
The crash occurred about 2 a.m. at one of the monorail stops at Disney World in Florida, said the witness, who requested anonymity.
Walt Disney World spokesman Mike Griffin said the crash happened at about 2 a.m. Sunday, on one of the monorail's last runs of the day.
Austin Wenneberg, 21, a Disney employee who was piloting one of the monorails died at the scene of the accident, the Orange County Sheriff's Office said. One other employee was transported to Florida Hospital Celebration. The second driver's injuries were not serious, Griffin said.
"Today we mourn the loss of our fellow cast member," said a statement by Mike Griffin, Disney's vice president for public affairs. "Our hearts go out to his family and to those who have lost a friend and co-worker."
The statement said the monorail was shut down, "and we will continue to work closely will law enforcement to determine what happened and the appropriate next steps."
The witness said one monorail train rammed into the back of a stationary train. A photo of the crash provided by the witness showed the front car of a train badly damaged where it hit another train at a station.
According to the witness, a family of six in one train was freed from a damaged car. The witness said the family was shaken but uninjured."
All Disney and more condolences goes to the family of the cast member who died in this dreadful accident.
You can read more infos about what happen on Mice Chat or the Orlando Sentinel. However a former WDW monorail pilot just released this interesting video explaining how the accident probably happened.
Leave a comment or discuss this article on D&M english forum on Mice Chat
Text From CNN.com and Orlando Sentinel
Picture from CNN.com
The former video shoot seconds after the crash has been removed from Youtube. The original video is at www.clickorlando.com
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Great Pictures of new WDW Hall Of Presidents with Barack Obama Audio-Animatronic
Walt Disney World released today beautiful pictures of the new Hall Of Presidents with Barack Obama Audio-Animatronic. Beautiful pictures, really. Double-click on each of them to see them in big size.
And a last picture showing WDI Imagineer John Cutry programming the Audio-Animatronic figure of President Barack Obama.
Pictures: copyright Disney
Leave a comment or discuss this article on D&M english forum on Mice Chat
Disneyland's " America on Parade " original artwork and models
Today is July 4th, United States Independence Day, and to celebrate this memorable day this article is all about the 1975 Disneyland's and Magic Kingdom's "America on Parade", with rare artwork and pictures of the parade models, thanks to Richard Terpstra, Disney and more reader, who sent to me the artwork and model pictures you will see below. A big hat tip to Richard for his precious help in the making of this article!
America on Parade was a temporary replacement for Disneyland's and WDW Magic Kingdom's Main Street Electrical Parade during the United States Bicentennial. Like the Main Street Electrical Parade, America on Parade was also created under the direction of Disneyland's Director of Entertainment, Bob Yani. The first run was in the summer of 1975 and was originally designed to run through 1977, to commemorate the United States Bicentennial. Where the Main Street Electrical Parade ran nightly, America on Parade ran once during the afternoon and again just prior to the nightly fireworks display. It traveled the full length of Disneyland from "it's a small world" to Town Square at the beginning of Main Street, U.S.A.
The Sherman Brothers who had left Disney Studios to work for independent film companies were asked to write a specialty song for the American Bicentennial. The song was called "The Glorious Fourth" and was performed as a part of AOP.
The parade also featured synchronized music to which performers danced set routines created by Disneyland choreographers (Barnett Ricci and Marilyn Magness). Each of the parade performers sported costumes appropriate to the float around which they danced, as well as enormous heads fixed on a custom-built apparatus for support, with the performer looking through the neck, giving the parade a carnival appearance.
The parade's soundtrack was Don Dorsey's first project for Disney. He used synthesizers and antique carousel organs to create the soundtrack. [1] During the parade's run, Dorsey conceptualized a system which Disney would develop a computer controlled system called "Mickey Track" that controls the parade's music from 1980 and on.
And now, let's have a look to the parade renderings for all the different costumes and the floats model pictures! I've tried to put them in chronological historical order, hope i didn't do any mistake!
As i've said above the characters and the floats for "America on Parade" were designed and built by the Park's Entertainment Division. Some of the characters were later recostumed, also by WDW's Entertainment Division and used as walk-around characters in World Showcase when EPCOT first opened in 1982. I don't know if all World Showcase Pavillions had them, but some friend can remember characters in Japanese costumes, greeting guests in front of the Japan Pavillion. There were also characters appropriately costumed in front of the Mexico Pavillion. And in front of the American Adventure there were colonial costumed characters, maybe left over from the parade.
I hope you've enjoyed this America on Parade article and I wish to all my American readers a great Independence Day!
All pictures and artwork: copyright Disney
Part of the text: copyright Wikipedia
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