NBCUniversal has hired Russell Hampton, a former tip consumer products executive during a Walt Disney Co., to assistance accelerate merchandising and mobile calm strategies for a Comcast Corp.-owned media company.
Hampton, who until a year ago served as boss of Disney Publishing Worldwide, stairs into a newly combined position of executive clamp boss of authorization government and tellurian consumer products.
He becomes a second vital sinecure of Lauren Zalaznick who progressing this year became digital origination strategist for NBCUniversal Chief Executive Steve Burke. In February, Zalaznick hired Lori Conkling as executive clamp boss for plan and business development.
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Hampton spent about 17 years during Disney, a attention personality in code government and consumer products. He left Disney in May 2012 after a association announced it was relocating a edition division’s domicile to a West Coast.
“Russell will combine a richest franchises opposite a portfolio and gain on them in a tellurian chartering and merchandising arena,” pronounced Zalaznick, NBCUniversal executive clamp president, who manages a Media Innovation and Cross Company Initiatives group.
Hampton will be tasked with building a extensive plan for chartering and merchandising efforts. He will coordinate opposite a company’s sprawling units that embody Universal Pictures, Universal thesis parks, a NBC and Telemundo promote TV networks, 18 wire channels, including USA, Bravo and MSNBC, and dozens of digital properties.
NBCUniversal also wants to enhance a assembly of immature children and families, and Hampton is approaching to code ways to do that.
At Disney, Hampton was a pivotal member of a group that helped mortar a Burbank party hulk into digital publishing. He shepherded a Muppets code after a puppets were acquired by Disney 9 years ago. He also spearheaded a company’s entrance into a educational marketplace by a origination of Disney English, a sequence of denunciation training schools in China.
The Paper Mill Playhouse here has only non-stop a new chronicle of “Disney’s ‘The Little Mermaid,’ ” an spectacular that ran for 685 performances on Broadway after a premiere in Jan 2008 though was no doubt a beating for Disney compared with “The Lion King” and “Beauty and a Beast.” The progressing “Mermaid” was generally reviled by critics; a new one works improved by not perplexing to be some-more than it is.
The Paper Mill entertainment comes with a new executive (Glenn Casale), choreographer (John MacInnis) and scenic engineer (Kenneth Foy), as good as dual new dress designers, Amy Clark and Mark Koss, and a integrate of new songs. More important, it comes with a new sensibility. The progressing version, during slightest from a video clips accessible on a Internet, was a cranky between a children’s story and a Cirque du Soleil show, featuring clumsy, off-putting costumes and choreography that done complicated use of Heely-like boots with skating wheels embedded in them.
At Paper Mill, Ariel (Jessica Grové), a charmer of a title, spends a satisfactory volume of time aloft — that is, floating and swimming above a theatre — as do assorted others, and Scuttle a sea gull (Matt Allen) flies. You’re always unwavering of a actors’ harnesses, though somehow this seems a some-more organic fit for a story than all that skating was. And a gimmick substantially has a aloft wow cause for a show’s aim audience.
That assembly is utterly clearly 12 and under, and a arrogance is that these congregation are fans of a 1989 charcterised film and don’t most caring about highfalutin reinterpretations thereof. This chronicle isn’t demure to plead a movie.
Take, for instance, a costuming of Ursula a sea magician (Liz McCartney), a knave of a story, who tries to take Ariel’s poetic voice and adopt a energy of her father, King Triton (Edward Watts). The green get-up of Broadway is gone; here Ursula is all purple and black, her colors during a multiplex.
The uncover might be pitched to youngsters, though it takes an adult to conclude only how good Ms. McCartney’s opening is, and Alan Mingo Jr.’s, too. He is Sebastian a crab, confidant to Triton, and he does a fine pursuit of putting his possess spin on a colorful prolongation series “Under a Sea,” one of a best-known of a Alan Menken/Howard Ashman songs from a movie. (New songs for a theatre are by Mr. Menken and Glenn Slater.)
Things swamp down a small each time a intent of Ariel’s affection, a tellurian Prince Eric (Nick Adams), shows up, though that was loyal of a film as well; there only isn’t most to a character. There’s also not most to his ship, that looks as if it’s done of cardboard.
In a movie, that boat plays a critical purpose in a howling climactic scene. Here, a finale has been redone to make it some-more stageable, though in a routine it has turn not really noted and a small disjointed to boot. Too bad; even a children in a assembly are substantially awaiting a large boon for carrying sat by a story they already know well.
A prior Disney film-turned-stage-musical had a rehearsal during Paper Mill: “Newsies,” that played there in 2011 before going on to Broadway and dual Tony Awards. What a destiny binds for this new “Mermaid,” reduction ostentatious and some-more kid-centered than a predecessor, depends on how many relatives are peaceful to flare over big-house sheet prices to perform a small mermaids in their lives.
The Little Mermaid
Music by Alan Menken; lyrics by Howard Ashman and Glenn Slater; book by Doug Wright, formed on a Hans Christian Andersen story and a Disney film constructed by Mr. Ashman and John Musker and created and destined by Mr. Musker and Ron Clements; destined by Glenn Casale; choreography by John MacInnis; song director, Craig Barna; sets by Kenneth Foy; costumes by Amy Clark and Mark Koss; lighting by Charlie Morrison; sound by Randy Hansen; hair and wig pattern by Leah J. Loukas; makeup pattern by Ana Marie A. Salamat; drifting sequences choreographed by Paul Rubin; drifting by Foy; orchestrations by Danny Troob; immaterial song and outspoken arrangements by Michael Kosarin; prolongation theatre manager, Kim Vernace. Presented by Paper Mill Playhouse, Mark S. Hoebee, producing artistic director; Todd Schmidt, handling director. At a Paper Mill Playhouse, 22 Brookside Drive, Millburn, N.J.; (973)376-4343, papermill.org. Through Jun 20. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes.
WITH: Nick Adams (Prince Eric), Matt Allen (Scuttle), Sean Patrick Doyle (Jetsam), Jessica Grové (Ariel), Scott Leiendecker (Flotsam), Liz McCartney (Ursula), Alan Mingo Jr. (Sebastian), Christian Probst (Flounder), Timothy Shew (Pilot/Chef Louis), Edward Watts (King Triton) and Ron Wisniski (Grimsby).
Marketers typically bashful divided from pairing adult with films unless they’re formed on an existent — and already renouned — property. But with hits like “High School Musical,” “Camp Rock” and “The Cheetah Girls,” a Disney Channel Original Movie has spin adequate of a code magnet on a own.
To assistance hype a recover of subsequent month’s “Teen Beach Movie,” Disney Channel has lined adult Best Western and Honda, who will both launch pricey national ad campaigns for a surf-rock musical. The hotel chain’s debate will also widen into Canada.
The film is radically Disney Channel’s loyalty to a beach-set musicals of a 1960s like “Beach Party” and “Beach Blanket Bingo,” that starred former Mouseketeer Annette Funicello, as good as “Grease” and “Austin and Ally.”
Directed by Jeffrey Hornaday (Disney Channel’s “Geek Charming”), “Teen Beach Movie” revolves around high propagandize friends who find themselves ecstatic into their favorite movie, “Wet Side Story.” David Lawrence (“High School Musical”) constructed a score.
Retailers including Walmart, Target, Toys R Us, Kohls, Kmart and Disney Stores also are prepared to fill store shelves with “Teen Beach Movie” merchandise, with any removing their possess product lines that spans apparel, home decor, dolls, bedding, lunch kits, books, stationery and propagandize reserve directed during 6-14-year-olds.
Taking a gamble on an different skill is unsure — generally with sell featuring characters kids don’t nonetheless know. But Disney Channel has been means to surveillance a success of a prior pics and recognition of stars it has expel in “Teen Beach Movie” to attract partners.
Over a past 11 years, Disney Original Movies have ranked as TV’s tip film among tweens. Nearly 6 years after a premiere, “High School Musical 2” is still a No. 1 scripted wire TV telecast of all time with 18.7 million sum viewers.
The “Teen Beach Movie” expel also includes Ross Lynch, Maia Mitchell and Grace Phipps, stars of Disney Channel hits “Austin Ally” and ABC Family’s “The Fosters” and “The Nine Lives of Chloe King.” Ross also headlines a rope R5.
Those elements enticed Best Western to lapse and foster a Disney Channel film for a sixth time (it started with “Camp Rock”), while “Teen Beach Movie” will symbol Honda’s fourth (that kicked off with “High School Musical 2”).
“When we have companies entrance behind 4 and 6 times, it’s since it worked,” pronounced Rita Ferro, executive VP, Disney media sales and marketing. “It’s a Disney Channel Original Movie and that’s a authorization for us that’s consistently been a series one film on wire year after year.”
Both Best Western and Honda will launch TV, radio, online, mobile and amicable media ads, and unite sweepstakes for a film, that premieres on Disney Channel on Jul 19. The film bows even progressing on Jul 15 to purebred users of a WATCH Disney Channel app on mobile inclination and WATCHDisneyChannel.com.
As partial of a deal, Honda will get a sponsored by credit on a film, repeats and a designed sing-along special. The automaker will also emanate a co-branded end on DisneyChannel.com, that will foster a company’s Odyssey minivan.
In further to a designed marketing, Best Western will unite episodes of “Austin Ally,” to extend a organisation with Lynch, and a portal on Disney.com that will capacitate kids to emanate mashups of “Teen Beach Movie” calm to share with friends.
Best Western will also make standees of “Teen Beach Movie’s” characters inside a hotels, and palm out pivotal cards featuring images from a film, while regulating a Aurasma app will place images of guest in scenes from “Teen Beach Movie.”
The partners’ ad campaigns are approaching to spin by early August. The brands do not seem in a film since of boundary on product chain in kids programming.
Working with brands enables a companies to aim family audiences that watch a films together. Not usually can they put their brands in front of parents, who control a household’s spending, though also six-14-year-olds who increasingly change where families vacation and what cars mom or father buys.
In further to a increasing income a film can generate, marketers also assistance Disney Channel widespread a word about a new film over a categorical media buys and Disney operated platforms. Honda, for example, will also buy TV time on non-Disney owned wire or promote channels.
The cinema “aren’t usually about kids,” Ferro said. “It’s about a cross-family audience. The assembly strech is so broad. It’s an entrance indicate for mixed generations.”
The partners should also be means to advantage from their tie-in with a homevid release, as well, that will entrance exclusively during Walmart on Jul 19, and during many other retailers on Jul 30, tighten to a TV bow.
A soundtrack becomes accessible Jul 16 from Walt Disney Records that facilities 12 songs and 3 enlightening reward marks charity adult dance lessons.
Disney Channel also is producing a 10-city “Teen Beach Movie Beach Party” eventuality debate during Simon Malls, Radio Disney events in 31 markets opposite a U.S., and is tossing out 7 feet “Teen Beach Movie” branded beach balls during One Direction and R5 concerts opposite a U.S.
In a latest cost-cutting pierce during Disney, a association is seeking buyers for 6 AM and one FM radio hire that are partial of a Radio Disney portfolio in a United States.
Disney Media Networks is doing a sale of a stations in small- to mid-sized markets: Albany, New York; Kansas City, Missouri; Little Rock, Arkansas; Milwaukee, Wisc.; Richmond, Virginia; Salt Lake City, Utah; and San Antonio, Texas. The radio hire in Little Rock is on a FM dial.
It is misleading only how most silver Disney could collect from a sale of a stations directed during kids, tweens and families. The association does not mangle out formula from a radio stations in gain reports, incorporating them, instead, with a media networks group, that also includes foster and wire TV networks like ABC, Disney Channel and ESPN.
Disney still considers Radio Disney a clever item — generally as a height to foster a immature Walt Disney Records and Disney Channel stars, as good as association TV shows, thesis parks, online, diversion and film properties.
But it sees a sale as a approach for Burbank-based Radio Disney to concentration on a 24 stations it operates in a tip 25 markets, with a difference of Baltimore, Maryland. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Dallas turn out a tip five.
Sale also comes as Disney is looking to boost income and urge distinction margins companywide by a sale of resources or staff reductions.
This isn’t a initial time Disney is looking to sell off Radio Disney stations. It silenced 6 stations in 2010, also in small- to mid-market cities like Riviera Beach, Florida and Portsmouth, Virginia, as it sought buyers.
All of Radio Disney’s stations, are upheld by internal and inhabitant advertisers, while it also generates income from inhabitant advertisers on a digital and satellite placement platforms like RadioDisney.com, SiriusXM satellite radio, iTunes Radio Tuner, Facebook and mobile phones. Programming can also be downloaded around a iTunes Store.
“In a past year, we’ve driven new calm smoothness and ad sales income opportunities with Radio Disney Junior and a Radio Disney Music Awards, among others initiatives, and we intend to build on those opportunities while gripping a classification clever and focused on portion a listeners with programming that entertains and is suitable for kids- and families,” pronounced Phil Guerini, VP, programming and ubiquitous manager, Radio Disney, in a statement.
Disney also operates 12 Radio Disney stations in South America, that are not partial of a sale.
Disney kept tenure of Radio Disney when it sole ABC Radio Holdings to Citadel Broadcasting Corp in 2007. Sale during a time consisted of 22 large-market radio stations and a ABC Radio Network.
Radio Disney started broadcasting in late 1996, with a slogan, “We’re all ears.” It launched Radio Disney Music Awards in 2002.
Harmonix Music Systems Inc.,
a Cambridge association that launched a strain video diversion disturb with “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band,” is building a new diversion desirous by a 1940 charcterised Disney classic, “Fantasia.”
In a movie, sorcerer’s neophyte Mickey Mouse tries to conjure sorcery to a exemplary soundtrack. In a new game, “Fantasia: Music Evolved,” players will be means to use palm gestures and physique movements to cgange and remix exemplary music, as good as renouned songs from artists like Bruno Mars, Queen, Kimbra, and Fun.
“ ‘Fantasia’ is a unequivocally desirous title,” pronounced Christopher Nicholls, a game’s executive writer during Disney. “We’re doing some unequivocally fantastic things.”
The diversion is set for recover someday in 2014. It will be accessible usually for Microsoft Corp.’s arriving Xbox One
video diversion console and a Xbox 360 with Kinect motion-control technology.
Kinect, that was introduced by Microsoft in 2010, lets Xbox owners control a console with physique movements and voice commands. It has been a renouned appendage for a Xbox 360, with over 24 million units sold.
An softened chronicle of Kinect will be enclosed with each Xbox One when that console comes to marketplace after this year.
In “Fantasia: Music Evolved,” gamers turn apprentices to a magician who seeks to file their low-pitched talent. The players learn how to manipulate a stroke and character of informed songs by gesturing toward images on a screen.
For example, they can dial adult a exemplary adaptation of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” or have it played in a 1980s hard-rock style.
Other facilities let a actor change a sounds of particular instruments, like a lead or stroke guitars. Players can also use gestures to conceal a new tune onto a song.
But Harmonix orator John Drake pronounced that these enchanting powers are delicately tranquil to safeguard that a formula are easy on a ears.
“There are no green notes,” Drake said. “We’re never going to make we sound bad.”
The diversion will embody strain marks from over 25 artists, including “Levels” by AVICII, “Locked Out Of Heaven” by Bruno Mars, “Some Nights” by Fun, “Settle Down” by Kimbra, and of course, “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
And as with a company’s “Rock Band” games, a new diversion has copiousness of room for expansion.
The association expects to offer downloadable files from each low-pitched genre, so that gamers can exam their talents opposite a latest hits or dear classics.
While prior Harmonix games were recognised by association cofounders Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy, “Fantasia: Music Evolved” was dreamed adult by Disney. Nicholls, a pianist and lifelong fan of a Disney film, believed that Harmonix could interpret a judgment into a successful game.
“They flattering most single-handedly combined what we call strain gaming,” Nicholls said.
Helping nonmusicians make strain done Harmonix an courtesy titan.
In 2005, a association expelled a strange “Guitar Hero,” a diversion that let players use feign cosmetic guitars to play along with renouned songs. The “Guitar Hero” games and a follow-up series, “Rock Band,” generated over $3 billion in sales during a strain diversion disturb of a final decade.
After direct for music-playing diversion collapsed, Harmonix returned with a “Dance Central” games, in that players contest by dancing to cocktail tunes. That array sole several million copies.
These days, pronounced Drake, scarcely all of Harmonix’s courtesy is focused on a new “Fantasia” title, that has been underneath expansion for 18 months.
“We have an whole building fundamentally clinging to ‘Fantasia’ right now,” pronounced Drake.
Billy Pidgeon, an eccentric video diversion courtesy analyst, pronounced it is doubtful that “Fantasia” will compare a recognition of “Guitar Hero” or “Rock Band.”
“I unequivocally see that expansion in a stroke diversion difficulty as an curiosity that’s not unequivocally repeatable,” he said. But he pronounced that a diversion does not have to be a million-selling beast strike to be a success; indeed, Pidgeon reckoned that a association could substantially mangle even with sales of about half a million copies.
Pidgeon pronounced that since Microsoft is fervent to get copiousness of new games for a arriving Xbox One, a association might determine to inexhaustible agreement terms that would give Harmonix a larger-than-usual share of diversion revenues.
The initial open proof of “Fantasia: Music Evolved” will take place in mid-June during a E3 video diversion trade uncover in Los Angeles.
Leah Zanolla | Posted: Jun 4, 2013 | Updated: Jun 4, 2013 – 5:58:12 PM
Walt Disney World’s signature restaurant, Victoria Albert’s, has perceived a respect of apropos a AAA Five-Diamond grill for a 14th year in a row. Along with singular menus and a freshest ingredients, a staff contingency “exceed guest expectations by attending to any fact in an free and unimportant manner.” Victoria Albert’s rises to accommodate those standards and afterwards some. The grill facilities “Italian Sambonet silver, excellent Royal Doulton and Wedgwood china, and Italian Frette tablecloths” that are hung to equivocate creases. Female guest are given a sofa on that to rest their handbags and are sent home with a rose. If congregation are cold in a restaurant, servers will offer a cashmere hang for their shoulders.
Maitre d’Hotel Israel Perez, Chef Scott Hunnel and Master Pastry Chef Erich Herbitschek lead a group during Victoria Albert’s, charity Modern American flavors combined with general mixture and interconnected with wines for any course. The grill offers seating in their categorical dining room, a Queen Victoria’s Room and a Chef’s Table in a kitchen. The dining room seating offers 6 courses and is $135 per chairman and $65 if we would like booze pairings. The Chef’s Table and Queen Victoria’s room offer 10 courses and are $210, and $105 for a booze pairings.
Disney is branch a groundbreaking 73-year-old charcterised underline film Fantasia into a video game, yet with strain from exemplary rockers and contemporary artists.
Using Microsoft’s motion-sensing Kinect system, players call their arms, pull a palms of their hands in several directions and generally pierce to a strain in an bid to indeed remix songs. Onscreen, all that relocating around is also permitting them to try and change their visible environments.
The diversion will come with some-more than dual dozen songs, any including a strange chronicle and remixes that players can remix serve in mixed ways by their physique gestures.
The 5 songs Disney announced Tuesday are “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen; “Locked Out of Heaven” by Bruno Mars; “Settle Down” by Kimbra; “Levels” by Avicii; and “Some Nights” by Fun.
Disney didn’t divulge a financial arrangements it has with a artists. In a curtsy to a strange Fantasia, that facilities strain by Bach, Tchaikovsky and more, some exemplary strain will also make an appearance.
The diversion was grown over dual years by Harmonix, a association behind games like Dance Central and Rock Band, and will embody a ability for players to share a remixed versions of songs with others. It’s a underline that insiders contend Disney worked tough on, given it had to navigate wily chartering issues.
“It lets we be partial of a artistic routine of a song. Once we put so most appetite into creation it yours, we know you’ll wish to share it,” says John Drake, executive of code government for Harmonix. “Disney, being a overwhelming media partner they are, cumulative a really good rights portfolio.”
While a film Fantasia starred Mickey Mouse as an neophyte to magician Yen Sid, insiders contend a iconic animation impression isn’t a primary concentration of a video game, as he is in Epic Mickey, a diversion from Junction Point Studios that also uses Yen Sid as a tract point. Disney recently shut down Junction Point after softening sales of Epic Mickey.
Disney’s tip coronet have been putting vigour on a conglomerate’s interactive section to spin a profit. In a mercantile second quarter, Disney’s interactive shred mislaid $54 million on $194 million revenue. The section is creation a large gamble on Disney Infinity, a high-tech hybrid of a normal movement figure and a video diversion that is due Aug. 18.
The Fantasia film initial had a singular recover in 1940, afterwards several wider releases by a years. It has warranted $76.4 million worldwide during a box office. A sequel, Fantasia 2000, was expelled in 1999 and warranted $60.7 million worldwide.
Walt Disney Co. (DIS)’s California
Adventure, bolstered by a $1.1 billion expansion, led the
world’s largest thesis parks with a 23 percent swell in visitors
to 7.78 million final year.
Attendance during a tip 25 parks worldwide increasing 5.2
percent to 205.9 million visitors in 2012, according to a report
today by a Themed Entertainment Association and a consulting
firm Aecom.
“The marketplace in North America was, this year as final year,
driven by vital reinvestment during a vital operators’ parks,”
according to a report.
Disney, a world’s largest thesis park operator, tripled
its investment in a resorts multiplication between 2008 and 2012,
spending $9.2 billion on dual new journey ships and improvements
to a properties. The company’s net income jumped 32 percent to
$1.51 billion in a second quarter, in partial due to higher
attendance and a swell in increase during a parks business.
Disney’s California Adventure park in Anaheim non-stop its
Cars Land captivate in Jun 2012, sketch tourists to a new
area formed on a Pixar “Cars” films. Neighboring Disneyland
was a usually park among a world’s largest to register fewer
visitors final year, with assemblage timorous 1.1 percent to 16
million, according to a report.
Attendance ‘Dream’
Jay Rasulo, Disney’s arch financial officer, pronounced during an
investment discussion final week that a income spent on
California Adventure was designed to scold an imbalance in
attendance between a dual California resorts.
“We had a really disproportionate placement where many people spent
most of their time during Disneyland and Disney’s California
Adventure was empty,” Rasulo said. “Now, half of a folks go
to one, half of a folks go to a other. It’s roughly a dream
come true.”
Rasulo pronounced during a discussion a thesis parks division
faces a tough year-over-year comparison in a stream fiscal
third quarter. Results will simulate one reduction week of Easter
holiday traffic, compared with a same duration final year, and
Disney won’t get a same gain boost from a new cruise
ship Fantasy as a boat has now been handling for some-more than a
year, he said.
Disney’s batch rose reduction than 1 percent to $64.35 during the
close in New York. Shares of a Burbank, California-based
company have risen 29 percent this year by today, compared
with 14 percent for a Standard Poor’s 500 Index.
The association lifted acknowledgment prices during a parks this week,
increasing a cost of a Disneyland or California Adventure
single-day, adult sheet by 5.7 percent to $92.
To hit a contributor on this story:
Christopher Palmeri in Los Angeles at
cpalmeri1@bloomberg.net
To hit a editor obliged for this story:
Anthony Palazzo at
apalazzo@bloomberg.net
Disney’s Upgraded California Park Draws 23% More Visitors
Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
Walt Disney Co., a world’s largest thesis park operator, tripled a investment in a resorts multiplication between 2008 and 2012, spending $9.2 billion on dual new journey ships and improvements to a properties.
Walt Disney Co., a world’s largest thesis park operator, tripled a investment in a resorts multiplication between 2008 and 2012, spending $9.2 billion on dual new journey ships and improvements to a properties. Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
Disney’s Upgraded California Park Draws 23% More Visitors
Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
Walt Disney Co.’s California Adventure park in Anaheim, California non-stop a Cars Land captivate in Jun 2012, sketch tourists to a new area formed on a Pixar “Cars” films.
Walt Disney Co.’s California Adventure park in Anaheim, California non-stop a Cars Land captivate in Jun 2012, sketch tourists to a new area formed on a Pixar “Cars” films. Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
Disney’s Upgraded California Park Draws 23% More Visitors
Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
Crowds accumulate to watch “Mickey’s Soundsational Parade” during Walt Disney Co.’s Disneyland Park, partial of a Disneyland Resort, in Anaheim, California.
Crowds accumulate to watch “Mickey’s Soundsational Parade” during Walt Disney Co.’s Disneyland Park, partial of a Disneyland Resort, in Anaheim, California. Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
Walt Disney’s strange prophesy for Fantasia, that went into prolongation 75 years ago in Burbank, California, was to emanate something that would live on and redefine people’s attribute to strain and storytelling. While Fantasia 2000 unsuccessful to recapture a nostalgia that a strange film, that was usually expelled in 12 theaters in 1940, did; Disney Interactive has teamed adult with Harmonix, a diversion developers behind Activision’s Guitar Hero, MTV Games’ Rock Band and Microsoft’s Dance Central franchises, to pierce a whole new era of musicians to a concept.
Fantasia: Music Evolved will boat for Xbox One and Xbox 360 in 2014 and underline strain from a likes of AVICII (Levels), Bruno Mars (Locked Out Of Heaven), Fun (Some Nights), Kimbra (Settle Down) and Queen (Bohemian Rhapsody). Many some-more artists will be announced between now and a Kinect game’s recover subsequent year, as 25 are approaching on a front and some-more will expected be expelled around DLC.
Chris Nicholls, executive writer on a diversion during Disney interactive, pronounced Harmonix has been means to excavate into a Disney repository to constraint a suggestion of a strange classic, while pulling interactivity brazen regulating a Kinect and new Xbox One Kinect suit sensor controllers.
“Fantasia: Music Evolved puts a energy of strain in your hands,” pronounced Nichols. “Rather than admire a creativity of others, Harmonix has built a story around you. Walt redefined people’s attribute with strain by animation, Harmonix has redefined this attribute by games over a years. Fantasia literally puts we into a heart of a music.”
Players turn Mickey a Sorcerer from a Sorcerer’s Apprentice brief in a strange 1940 film. Yen Sid is also concerned in a story, though Disney is gripping silent on sum during this early point.
According to John Drake, executive of code government during Harmonix, Walt Disney had an army of transcriptionists to constraint any assembly as he was building Fantasia. This authorised a Boston-based growth group a possibility to knowledge a routine of how Disney went about bringing people closer to exemplary and jazz strain by new animation record and visible media.
Harmonix Project Director Daniel Sussman told me that a group wants to give players a feeling of behaving music. The interactive inlet of games, and a ability to use your physique by Kinect, is indeed a healthy prolongation of Walt’s strange vision. Sussman also combined that while this diversion follows a cannon of Fantasia, it’s not a film diversion or a port. Harmonix built on a grounds Walt had determined and stretched on it for today’s gamers and a latest record (including Xbox One).
While Rock rope was about simulation, Fantasia is a strain origination experience. we was means to play dual levels of a diversion during pre-E3 in Los Angeles and it’s an extraordinary and discerning new experience. Your arms act as 3D cursors within a world, permitting full scrutiny of a strong levels that have lots of secrets to unlock.
While there might be dancing hippos in a diversion (Disney is gripping silent on what exemplary sequences might be coming), a dual worlds we were given a glance into concerned a pleasing underwater coral embankment called The Shoal and a automatic handling copy press bureau called The Press. Sussman pronounced this diversion knowledge isn’t about removing 5 stars, it’s about personification a strain and creation it your own. The diversion will strictly be playable to a rest of a universe during E3 in Los Angeles subsequent week.
Part of a “magic” of this diversion is that any strain is totally customizable. You’re literally in control of changing a instruction a strain takes as we authority a percussion, a strings and other low-pitched elements by sound portals that exist within these worlds. There’s also a 3D scrutiny component to a levels where players can clear new low-pitched elements like a carousel full of seahorses and a tortoise bombard piano (in The Shoal). Once unlocked, all of these interactive elements can be used to make strange music. With any unbarred element, some-more fish enter a universe and it comes to life.
Sussman pronounced a idea of a game, that is really open, is to fill Mickey’s boots and infer yourself to Yen Sit by bringing any universe to life with strain and magic. The diversion supports adult to dual players during a time. One thing Sussman reminded me, given Fantasia was good before my time (but we watched it on VHS and after DVD and Blu-ray), is that carrying complicated artists pierce these new Disney universe to life is in line with what a strange film did. Leopold Stokowski was one of a many renouned composers of a time when he concluded to work on Fantasia. And composer Deems Taylor, who acts as a master of ceremonies in a film, was also “modern” to a 1940s film-going audience.
It’s been a few years now given a call of Guitar Hero and Rock Band games dominated a sales charts. Both franchises were originated by Harmonix, that is deliberate a master of a strain genre dating behind to early games like Amplitude and FreQuency for Sony PlayStation 2 and after Karaoke Revolution. This melding of Fantasia, a code that connects with an comparison demographic, and complicated musicians, could settle a code new authorization for a company. Harmonix positively combined games that people wanted some-more of year after year with Guitar Hero for Activision, in and with Red Octane, and Rock Band for MTV Games and Electronic Arts. These were both billion dollar franchises before a genre crashed and burnt in 2011.
Michael Pachter, video diversion researcher for Wedbush Securities, believes this family-friendly charity will be good for both Disney and Microsoft. He believes a diversion could pierce over 1 million units on Xbox One alone and between 3 to 5 million units on Xbox 360 since of a peculiarity turn of Harmonix titles.
“I consider it’s some-more engaging that Disney is outsourcing growth for this diversion and for Star Wars with Electronic Arts,” combined Pachter.
Harmonix continues to have success in a now-popular dance strain category, where Dance Central 3 takes advantage of Kinect technology. Ubisoft’s Just Dance authorization also continues to keep audiences entrance behind for new strain year after year with no slack in sight.
Fantasia: Music Evolved is a opposite form of game. The 3D high clarification visuals of a worlds I’ve explored are amazing. And a strain is catchy, even though we changing a approach it plays. Whether by DLC or sequels, we can see this judgment continuing. There’s a Fantasia 2000 movie, though there’s zero preventing Disney from drumming into other Disney worlds and franchises to pierce strain to life in a new way. It’s a opposite take than Disney Infinity, that is branch live movement and charcterised film worlds into games by a new interactive fondle line.
From what I’ve experienced, this new take on Fantasia is something to get vehement about. It’s opposite than what we’ve seen before. And it’s a diversion entering a genre that many suspicion to be passed (at slightest Activision and Electronic Arts have left it alone for some time now). Disney sorcery could be only what a conductor ordered. It also gives Microsoft a cold family-friendly disdainful in a subsequent gen console battle.
The many enchanting thing about a Magic Kingdom? It competence be a ability to make your income disappear.
The ultimate family vacation end only lifted a one-day, singular park ticket price to $95 for adults during Orlando’s Disney World. But don’t worry, during slightest a kids get a discount. Their park pass is now a small $89.
California’s Disneyland also lifted a prices — $92 for adults and $86 for children.
And here we were angry that $9.49 for that famous jumbo turkey leg was a lot of cash.
The changes went into outcome Sunday and paint a $6 strike from a prior adult rate of $89 a day. So for a family of four, that means a singular day of Space Mountain, Main Street U.S.A. and carrying a “Pirates of a Caribbean” theme song (yo, ho!) parched in your mind now costs $368, before tax.
Of course, that total assumes we and your kids don’t wish any food. Or Mickey-shaped souvenirs. It’s not irrational afterwards to consider that a day during Disney might lift a loyal cost of around $500.
There are still multi-day discounts and options for a ‘Park Hopper’ pass permitting your rope of Mouseketeers to revisit mixed Disney thesis parks during a reduced rate. For instance, a three-day, multi-park pass for a family of 4 costs $862. Plus, we suspect you’ll afterwards need somewhere to stay as well.
So how do Disney’s prices smoke-stack adult opposite a competition? Pretty well, actually. Good for them, tough on your thrill-seeking wallet. Here’s what you’ll compensate this summer for a singular day during some of a nation’s tip thesis parks.
EPCOT: $90 for adults, $84 for children
Universal Studios Orlando: $92 for adults, $86 for children
Universal Studios Hollywood: $81 for adults, $73 for children
Busch Gardens Tampa: $85 for adults ($75 if purchased online), $77 for children ($67 online)
Busch Gardens Williamsburg: $80 for adults ($70 online), $70 for children ($60 online)
Dollywood: $56 for adults, $44 for children
Cedar Point: $55 for adults ($45 online), $30 for children if purchased online
Six Flags Magic Mountain: $65 for adults ($45 online), $40 for children
Knott’s Berry Farm: $60 for adults ($40 online), $31 for children ($27 online) by Jun 27th
