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Welcome to June. That time of year when many of us struggle to find the perfect graduation present. That thoughtful, well-chosen item which will then make an impression on the newly capped-and-gowned. Luckily, Disney Editions has - just yesterday, in fact - released a book that (I think, anyway) will...

The tale of the Sorcerer's Apprentice and The Walt Disney Company have been intertwined ever since Walt Disney invited famed conductor Leopold Stokowski to come join him for dinner at Chasen's . Which is where the old Mousetro supposedly asked the Maestro if he'd be interested in working with Disney...

It’s that time of year again. When high school and college students all over the country are graduating. More importantly, when JHM readers reach out and ask for my suggestions when it comes to the perfect graduation gift for the would-be animators and Imagineers in their families. This year, though...

When discussing a new summer blockbuster like Disney’s “ Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time ,” it’s hard not to get caught up in all the details. Like those 1,200 visual effects shots that you’ll find in this Jerry Bruckheimer production. Or the action sequences that Mike Newell chose to stage 8,200...

Did you see where the purchase price of DreamWorks Animation shares dropped 6% yesterday because some investment analyst said that “ Shrek Forever After ” was projected to only make $315 million during its initial domestic run? Care to guess how many movies released last year sold more than $300 million...

Given that we now live in the age of DreamWorks 3.0 , with Walt Disney Studios distributing the films that Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider will soon be producing, it’s kind of hard to remember the bad old days. When Jeffery Katzenberg was … … out to deplete Disney’s talent pool. He flattered Disney...

Good God. Are we really already be up to Volume 9 in the “Walt’s People” series? I can recall when Disney Historian Didier Ghez initially proposed these books (which – if I’m remembering correctly – was sometime back during the Pleistocene Epoch) that would collect & then reprint the very best Mouse...

Did you see where “ How to Train Your Dragon ” was No. 1 again at the box office this past weekend ? According to Box Office Mojo , if this Chris Sanders & Dean DeBlois film keeps up this pace, it will soon become DreamWorks Animation’s highest grossing non-Shrek movie . Which is kind of ironic....

When he was in the press room at Comic Con last July, Tim Burton talked about how “ Alice in Wonderland ” wasn’t actually the first film that he’d used green screen on (2007’s “ Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street ” was). But because so many scenes for this Walt Disney Pictures release were...

Those of you who were so quick to dismiss Robert Zemeckis ’ “ A Christmas Carol ” as a cinematic lump of coal in Disney’s corporate stocking may want to take another look at the grosses for this performance capture picture. As Bob Iger admitted during last week’s quarterly earnings conference call :...

In honor of Columbus Day, I thought that we’d spend today peeking over the horizon. Discovering what new worlds possibly awaits us by checking out some of the domain names The Walt Disney Company has registered over the past few weeks. All of you athletic-types who enjoy taking part in endurance events...

I’m almost afraid to say this, given that there are still two installments of the “Harry Potter” film franchise yet to come (i.e. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One,” which is currently slated to hit theaters in November of 2010. While “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two” will...

In honor of the 20 th anniversary of Disney’s Hollywood Studios (Which The Walt Disney World Resort will be celebrating this Friday with a variety of events at that theme park), I thought it might be interesting today to explore one of the great “What If” moments in Hollywood history. As in: What would...

In response to last week's review of Jeff Kurtti 's newest book , " Walt Disney's Imagineering Legends and the Genesis of the Disney Theme Park ," I got the following e-mail: Not everyone who reads JimHillMedia is interested in the Disney theme parks. Some of us come to your site because we want to learn...

This past weekend, I found myself 90 miles from home in Hingham, MA. Photo by Jim Hill Why had I driven down to the South Shore ? Because I was trying to find a theater here in New England that was screening " Morning Light ." Which went into extremely limited release this past Friday. Photo by Jim Hill...

Who is Hans Bacher ? Trust me, folks. If you're a Disneyana fan, you know this man's work. If you were creeped out by the look of the Beast's lair in " Beauty & the Beast " ... Copyright 2007 Disney Enterprises. All Rights Reserved ... or ever marveled at the clean, crisp design of the logo for the...

Do you want the Disneyana fan on your holiday shopping list to have a very "Mary" Christmas? Then be sure and pick them up a copy of Brian Sibley & Michael Lassell's " Mary Poppins: Anything Can Happen If You Let It " (Disney Editions, December 2007). Subtitled "The Story Behind the Journey from...

It's okay. You can admit it. As the camera pulled back at the end of " Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End ," leaving Captain Jack Sparrow just as we'd found him at the start of " The Curse of the Black Pearl " (i.e alone in a small boat in the middle of this empty huge sea), you felt a little blue...

There's this genuinely eerie passage in Karen Paik 's " To Infinity and Beyond! The Story of Pixar Animation Studios " ( Chronicle Books , November 2007), which talks about how a single book basically changed the course of John Lasseter 's life. In ninth grade, Lasseter was searching the art section...