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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...

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...

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 :...

Take a dollop of “ Desperate Housewives ” and then toss that into a blender with a cup full of “ Charmed .” Now whip up elements of these two hit show elements up until they’re light & frothy, then pour the whole thing over the Stars Hollow sets from “ Gilmore Girls .” What do you wind up with? A...

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...

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...

If you were to ask David A. Price when Pixar Animation Studios first came on his radar, he'd probably tell you about this tech conference that he attended in the late 1980s where the work-in-progress version of "Tin Toy" was shown. "Tinny had just gotten stuck in that box," Price recalled. "And as he...

Marvin T. writes in ask about " National Treasure: Book of Secrets ." What do you make of the last scene of "Book of Secrets" ? The one where the President of the United States asks Benjamin Gates about what he thought about Page 47 in the President's book. And the historian / treasurer hunter replies...

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...

In response to this week's Toon Tuesday column , CC writes in to say: " Pixar wanted to produce a holiday special back in the 1980s?! Come on, Jim. You've GOT TO write an article about that." Ask and ye shall receive. But please keep in mind that the Pixar that I'll be writing about will not be the great...

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...

How many of you out there remember Steve Martin , stand-up comic ? That absurdist in the white three-piece suit who -- as he was leading audience singalongs -- would say: This half of the room! Beautiful! Now this half! Good, good! All right, two fifths! Now, three-fifths! Good. Seven-ninths! Two-ninths...