Are you ready for a barrage of Star Wars films? Disney hopes so: according to multiple outlets, the company has just announced at CinemaCon that it will be releasing a new film in the universe every summer, starting in 2015. We had previously heard that Episode VII was destined for a 2015 release, but with today's development plans have become much clearer.
Pour one out for the Gold Guy tonight, my fellow gamers. A sage pillar of the industry has fallen.
Just 154 days after acquiring LucasArts as part of their larger, $4B acquisition of Lucasfilm, Disney has dissolved the classic video game development company.
Beginning today, Disney will continue to license out the LucasArts properties (namely Star Wars), but has ceased the development of all internal projects.
While the move was not unforeseen (the company’s last few games haven’t been very successful, and rumors of projects being shuttered have trickled in since the acquisition), that doesn’t make today’s news any less disheartening. A part of my childhood — a part of an entire generation of gamer’s collective childhood, really — goes down with LucasArts.
Disney is already one of the biggest media companies around, and it's now set to become even bigger. The company announced late today that it's acquiring Lucasfilm Ltd., currently 100 percent owned by founder George Lucas, for $4.05 billion in a cash and stock deal. That of course includes the rights to both the Star Wars and Indiana Jones film franchises, as well as Lucasfilm properties like Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound. What's more, the press release announcing the deal also confirmed that Disney is now targeting 2015 for a release of Star Wars: Episode 7, and that its "long term plan is to release a new Star Wars feature film every two to three years." No word yet on a proper release of the original, original trilogy.
Though it’s obviously more of a show business story than it is a technology industry story, the news of Lucasfilm’s $4 billion sale to Disney has reverberated throughout the tech world this afternoon.
This is partly just because of Star Wars’ cult status among the geeks (and I use that term with all respect and love) who make the web go ’round. But also, Lucasfilm has straddled the worlds of tech and film in a unique way, with its headquarters in San Francisco instead of LA and its strong operations in tech- and engineering-heavy things such as visual effects, sound design, animation, and of course gaming.
These animated films didn't become masterpieces out of thin air; some of the paintings and illustrations created to inspire the creative direction of the early Disney classics are truly fine works of art in and of themselves. Mary Blair was an especially gifted illustrator whose work for Disney dictated the look of some of their most beloved classics.
The Walt Disney Company will finally be unveiling a newly refurbished Disney.com site — aimed at delivering a robust entertainment experience — which the digital division of the company has been working on for a year.
In an interview Friday, Disney Interactive co-President James Pitaro said that the new site has been built from the “ground up,” keeping in mind delivery to multiple devices, especially increasingly popular tablets and smartphones.
Making such a dramatic shift to what he called the “digital gateway to Disney” is not without risk, he said.
As you might already know, Etsy.com is packed with hidden design gems. Many unknown yet talented illustrators, designers, and artist sell their beautiful work as prints. Rowan Stocks-Moore is a passionate book and film cover designer from London. He created the following Disney posters in a minimal form. We really love the way they turned out and decided to share them with you.
There’s a new product that just came out of Disney Interactive Labs — a video portal for clips, movie trailers, and even a collection of curated YouTube videos, all designed to be watched online or on any of your mobile devices. The new Disney Video site, located at video.disney.com, combines the best of Disney past and present, with a whole lot of content that might not be found anywhere else.
It’s too early for us to know a whole lot about the site — we checked out the portal after it was announced on Twitter by Henry Work, Senior Software Engineer for Disney Interactive Labs. But at first glance, it seems like a pretty cool example of what a major media company can do with a huge library of content that it hopes to bring to multiple platforms and devices.
We looked way back in time and we managed to gather 21 cool vintage cartoon posters. These cover the era when Walt Disney's unique style of drawing was a magnet for millions of children. To be more specific, the oldest poster featured here is form 1929, whereas the newest is from 1954.
Watched The Avengers movie? Wanna see more? Yea, you’re gonna get more, very soon. According to Bob Iger, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Disney, a sequel to The Avengers is already “in development”.
Hello everyone! It is time to go back in time for a short while. It is time to digg deep in your memory and find out the things that made your days brighter, back in the days. Remember the childhood and the beautiful stories from back then.
Comcast has re-upped its distribution deal with Disney, which means the country’s largest cable company will continue to pipe programming from ABC, ESPN and other channels into its subscribers’ homes for another 10 years.
When people talk about mega-deals in the tech industry, it usually involves hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. On Monday, a deal will be announced for $10-$15 million dollars. The waves of this deal will likely be felt by a good portion of the world in the near future.
Mark one up for Amazon…and mark one up for Netflix.
The two companies just announced separate streaming deals with the Walt Disney Co. that will provide subscribers with even more content from Mickey & Co. Under these agreements, both streaming services will see even more Disney/ABC content, expanding their respective libraries with current and past TV programming.
Cute little girl gets an early birthday present and her reaction is priceless. This video has quickly gone viral for obvious reasons.
