Once the public face of squeaky-clean, harmless family entertainment, the Walt Disney Corporation has evolved into a widespread conglomerate known as much for the properties it controls as the films it produces. With subsidiaries including Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, National Geographic, A&E, 20th Century Fox, ESPN, Hulu, and Pixar, Disney has a commanding control of some of the world’s most lucrative franchises, plus an extensive library of film and TV classics. Its streaming service Disney+ signals a new interest in controlling its own online distribution, setting aside decades of licensing partnerships. Follow along with The Verge as we look at Disney’s new films and shows, and its strategies for dominating the box office and the streaming dollar.
During an earnings call on Friday, Charter CFO Jessica Fischer said that loss was still “less” than what the company initially expected. Charter execs also seem pretty optimistic about its cable bundle with Disney, with CEO Chris Winfrey saying the deal marks a “significant step forward for the video ecosystem.”
[The Hollywood Reporter]
“The Star Beast” will air on November 25.
“Wild Blue Yonder” will air December 2.
“The Giggle” will air December 9.
All three episodes will air on BBC in the UK, and Disney Plus in the US and elsewhere. They’ll also mark the official return of David Tennant as the Doctor (it’s complicated), Russell T. Davies as showrunner, and Catherine Tate as the best of the modern companions, Donna Noble.
The Front Office Sports Today podcast has a segment digging into the annual 8-K financial report released by Disney this week.
For the first time, it includes ESPN’s revenue and profit details — handy timing if you’re hoping someone will buy a part of the sports network — showing that even with the cable market much smaller than it was a few years ago, in 2022 it had $16 billion in revenue and $2.9 billion in profit. That probably explains why Netflix is about to test a live sporting event too.
Disney recently showed off bipedal droids that look exactly like something you’d see in a Star Wars movie, and now Disney’s Imagineers are testing the droids at Disneyland, as reported by Disneyland News Today. I love them!!
It’s a genuine possibility, according to Thomas Buckley’s incredibly juicy reporting over at Bloomberg that’s so chock-full of details about Disney’s CEO we already linked to it earlier today:
Iger’s deputies are pushing him to consider a bolder transformation of Disney from gaming licensee to gaming giant through, say, an acquisition of Electronic Arts. But, as with everything else, he’s been noncommittal.
[Bloomberg]
Bloomberg has a fascinating profile the recently-returned Disney CEO that’s packed with some juicy details about Iger’s and the company’s recent struggles. Like, for example: “On Sunday, Nov. 20, 2022, hours before Chapek was due to attend an Elton John concert broadcast on Disney+, he was fired.” Rough.
He has not been appeased. At least according to this story from the Wall Street Journal.
Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management has an enormous stake in Disney, and to keep Peltz appeased, Disney has done a lot this year, including looking into selling ABC and big chunks of its business in India, finding a “strategic partner” for ESPN, and folding Hulu into Disney Plus.
But unfortunately, Disney’s stock price, much like my entire retirement portfolio, has not been doing great this year. So Peltz is still looking to get some seats on the board.
It’s not the first restoration for the 1937 movie — in 1993, long before the DVD, Cinesite did a 4.7TB digitization of the film alongside a special Kodak “dustbusting” technique. But Disney says it’s using new scans of the original negatives for a new 4K UHD version, coming October 10th to disc and hitting Disney Plus on October 16th.
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Visual effects workers at Disney voted 13-0 to form a union with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) on Tuesday.
The 18-member division is looking for fair compensation, better health care, and retirement benefits, Variety reports. Just last month, Marvel’s VFX workers voted to unionize with the IATSE as well.
From its new writers room staffing minimums to guarantees that staffers will receive a bigger cut of streaming residuals, the WGA’s new labor contract is set to fundamentally improve working conditions in the entertainment industry.
Wish is meant to blend modern CGI animation with the gorgeous watercolor animation Disney was originally known for. That should make it similar looking to films like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. Those are gorgeously animated films with the latter looking like a hand drawn book brought to three-dimensional life.
Wish definitely has more of a Frozen vibe than that, but you can see sparks of that blended animation in a few moments...in between clips of a goat talking about its butt.
The Hollywood Reporter has a good read this morning on the last-minute negotiations to end the writers strike. It seems to come pretty much entirely from the studios’ perspective, but it’s a good read anyway.
Apparently the writers guild and the studios were barely even negotiating — everybody was waiting on the other side to make a move. But with the help of some showrunners and some late-night negotiating, a deal finally got done. And then almost fell apart. And then finally got done for real.
[The Hollywood Reporter]
The company is planning to drive growth by pumping roughly $60 billion into its parks, experiences, and cruise lines, noting in a blog post that Disney parks have “significant room for further expansion on land and at sea.”
Here’s hoping these new experiences will be more affordable than the $5,000 Star Wars hotel that Disney is shutting down later this month.
All 118 discs (including Pixar special features) are available exclusively at Walmart, and it’s $1,499.96. Before you run out and buy it, though, a word of caution: these are HD Blu-rays, so you won’t be watching Frankenweenie in crispy 4K resolution.
I’m not sure who feels this is worth the price of entry, but there you go.
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Disney and Charter’s historic agreement has introduced a new kind of cable bundle, and it could be the thing that saves cable TV... or destroys it.
The channel blackout that cut off an eventual US Open finalist from legitimately watching the tournament he was playing in appears likely to end before Monday Night Football kicks off tonight.
That’s according to CNBC’s David Faber, and the outlet has now confirmed it includes a “discounted wholesale price for subscribers for Disney streaming services, and an increase in marketplace, or subscriber fees, paid to Disney.” Also, there is no word on how this will impact the Hulu discount offer.
Update: And there it is, it’s over.
Disney has amended its federal lawsuit against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to only include claims about free speech. The entertainment giant will take its development contract disputes to a state-level court instead.
Disney’s lawsuit accuses the DeSantis Administration of “government retaliation,” alleging the state took away Disney’s self-governing power after the company pushed back on Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.
