Under a exclusive, multi-year agreement, Electronic Arts will rise titles for “all interactive platforms and a many renouned diversion genres” associated to “Star Wars.” Disney retains certain rights to rise games for mobile, social, inscription and online platforms, a companies said. 

The proclamation comes a small some-more than a month after Disney’s Lucasfilm Ltd. subsidiary, that is obliged for a “Star Wars” franchise, pronounced it would no longer make video games.

PHOTOS: ‘Star Wars’ during a box office

“Collaborating with one of a world’s premier diversion developers will concede us to move an extraordinary portfolio of new Star Wars titles to a fans around a world,” pronounced John Pleasants, co-president of Disney Interactive, in a statement.

In April, Burbank-based Disney’s Lucasfilm announced that a video diversion section would stop creation games and instead would demeanour to license a egghead property. Lucasfilm’s video diversion division, LucasArts, was founded in 1982 and is best famous for a slew of “Star Wars” video games.

As a outcome of a LucasArts decision, there were “layoffs opposite a organization,” yet Lucasfilm did not contend how many employees during a San Francisco-based gaming division were affected. Disney finished a $4.06-billion merger of Lucasfilm in December.

Redwood City, Calif.-based Electronic Arts, one of a world’s biggest gaming companies, is famous for sports franchises “Madden NFL” and “FIFA Soccer” and other array such as “Need for Speed,” “The Sims” and “Medal of Honor.”

EA Labels President Frank Gibeau pronounced in a matter that a new games “may steal from films” though will be original, with new stories and gameplay.

“Every developer dreams of formulating games for a ‘Star Wars’ universe,” Gibeau said. “Three of a tip studios will perform that dream, crafting epic adventures for ‘Star Wars’ fans.”

Financial terms of a understanding were not disclosed.

ALSO:

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello stairs down

Disney’s LucasArts halts video diversion development 

Star Wars: The Old Republic — a costliest diversion of all time?

daniel.miller@latimes.com

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Merida, a sweet, eccentric princess from “Brave,” will strictly join a Disney Princess Royal Court on Saturday.

Translation from Disney-speak: Merida is about to get her glam on.

Off-the-shoulder gown. Eye-liner. Lipstick. Wild red curls tamed into saturated voluptuous locks. A decorous countenance extended by her new, fuller lips.

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This is a Kardashian-ization of a Disney Princess.

It can be pointed (Rapunzel) or it can demeanour like cosmetic surgery. Cinderella now looks strangely like Taylor Swift, while bad Belle — we can’t confirm if she looks some-more like Kim, Kourtney or Khloe. (Look for a princess print gallery during OrlandoSentinel.com.)

Bottom line: When it comes to a animation selling images Disney uses to sell products — all from toys to garments to makeup — a princesses frequency resemble a characters we know from a movies.

As a mom, we wanted to know dual things: Why is this function and what can we do about it?

I incited to Peggy Orenstein, a author and cult favourite among moms who can’t mount that everything in a girls’ aisle during Target is possibly pinkish or princess.

“It’s sad,” Orenstein pronounced of Merida’s makeover. “I don’t know since they had to do that to her.”

Actually she does know. At least, she has a theory.

Disney is a master during capturing preschoolers. The 5-and-under set is like Play-Doh in a hands of a rodent marketers.

They also wish to reason on to those girls during 8, 15 and beyond. So a diva peculiarity gets amped up.

Disney usually launched a new makeup line. Last year high-end shoe engineer Christian Louboutin denounced a Cinderella potion slipper with crystals, what looks like a 6-inch heel (no consternation those boots came off when she ran from a ball) and Louboutin’s signature red sole. And there’s Disney’s line of princess-inspired marriage gowns.

The princess thing is no longer a little-girl phase.

“I’m watchful for a Snow White coffin to come out,” pronounced Orenstein, whose book “Cinderella Ate My Daughter” examines what a princess enlightenment does to a littlest girls.

She’s kidding. But we wouldn’t put it past them.

Disney took honeyed Merida and done her into a Gothic siren. Merida is a usually one of Disney’s 11 princesses who doesn’t finish adult with Prince Charming in a end. She bucks tradition by refusing to let her relatives marry her off.

That doesn’t meant she isn’t feminine. Or that she isn’t pretty. You can be flattering while holding a crawl and arrow. It worked for Katniss Everdeen.

But she didn’t fit a princess template. In a film Merida indeed looked like a teen that she’s ostensible to be, and she didn’t wear makeup. Instead of descending into a prince’s arms she starts to delight her attribute with her mother.

Is it any consternation moms desired this movie? Now, though, Merida has left sultry.

Disney apparently skeleton to use a animation selling picture on several products.

That matters since those are a images we buy and move into a homes. And a made-over picture sends a summary that Merida is improved when she’s glammed up.

What’s a annoyed mom to do?

Orenstein likes to contend “fight fun with fun.”

For example, if we buy your daughter a Cinderella costume, chances are she’ll use it to fake she’s Cinderella. But if we buy her a square of silk, she can use it as a princess dress or any series of other yarn games. She’ll use her imagination some-more and parrot Disney tract lines less.

Or, as Merida competence contend in her Scottish brogue, give your daughter a possibility to “change her fate.”

bkassab@tribune.com

When Chief Executive Robert Iger opens a Walt Disney Co. (DIS) post-earnings discussion call to questions late Tuesday, he won’t be asked again to transparent a $4 billion he spent in 2009 to acquire Marvel Entertainment. Or, during least, he shouldn’t be.

The skyscraping $175 million domestic box-office take for a opening weekend of “Iron Man 3” was exceeded usually by a prior Disney-Marvel recover “The Avengers,” that went on to collect $1.5 billion in sheet sales globally.

The latest “Iron Man” installment had already pulled in as most abroad as it is estimated to have grossed in a initial North American weekend in theaters. At a stream trajectory, a latest Robert Downey Jr.-Gwyneth Paltrow save-the-world-through-cool-technology film should strech $1 billion in tellurian box office.

“Iron Man 3” is a final Marvel-inspired film lonesome underneath a pre-existing placement agreement with Viacom Inc.’s (VIAB) Paramount Pictures – an arrangement that Iger wanted to get past urgently adequate that he concluded to compensate Paramount a guaranteed cost in 2010 for “The Avengers” and “Iron Man 3” so Disney could take control of both films’ marketing.

A large payday

Paramount was in line to acquire 8% of worldwide sum for distributing “The Avengers”‘ and 9% for “Iron Man 3.” Disney concluded to buy Paramount out of a understanding for $115 million, that was expel as an allege on those placement fees, with Paramount earning a full 8% and 9% cost if box-office sales surpass threshold levels. If “Iron Man 3” does finish up earning $1 billion, Paramount will get $90 million in total, or $32.5 million some-more than a smallest pledge pragmatic in a buyout deal, by one analyst’s estimate.

Disney is usually too happy to compensate this fee, since it means “Iron Man 3” is a larger-than-anticipated blockbuster and it gives a association a conduct start in embedding Marvel into a placement platform. This also hands Disney full selling control and intensity cost synergies with other releases.

Given a exile success of a “Iron Man” authorization – formed on what was once deliberate a extrinsic comic-book favourite – it’s conspicuous that Iger took a bit of feverishness from Wall Street for a cost he paid for Marvel.

Because “Spider-Man” is spoken-for underneath a long-term understanding with Sony Corp.’s (SNE) Sony Pictures, analysts were uncertain Marvel betrothed adequate bankable characters around that to bottom years-long slates of cinema and their attendant sell tie-ins. “The Avengers” and “Iron Man” have silenced a doubters. On a approach are another “Thor” design and “The Avengers 2,” that will go wholly to Disney.

Farwell to a “boy problem”

The Marvel understanding – along with last year’s $4 billion merger of Star Wars creator Lucasfilm and a continuation of a “Cars” authorization – has also put to rest what used to be deliberate Disney’s “boy problem.” The huge success commencement in a 1990s of Disney’s Princesses line of characters, along with Disney Channel hits such as “Hannah Montana,” left a company’s business lopsided in a instruction of immature girls.

Iger, who is set to retire as CEO in 2015, leaves a party groups distant some-more offset by patron gender, while a wire business all though owns masculine eyeballs by a ESPN networks.

All this, of course, is good accepted by a market, and Disney faces a comparatively high bar to transparent when stating a mercantile second-quarter results. The Wall Street accord for per-share gain is 77 cents a share, adult from 75 cents foresee for a entertain during a start of a year. Estimize.com, that crowd-sources estimates from buy-side professionals and other investors, and has tended to be some-more accurate than sell-side consensus, is display an 80-cent expectation.

Disney shares, meantime, are during an all-time high. And during above 18-times expected 2013 profits, shares are valued during a reward to Disney’s Big Media peers, that themselves trade during abounding multiples of gain after years of marketplace outperformance. Disney is substantially a highest-quality media hulk formed on a cable-business brew and a irreproducible inlet of a impression set.

Along with peers such as Time Warner Inc. (TWX), Disney is proof a value of exclusive content, display an ability to get paid for it in a digital universe and posterior a trained use of capital. All this is now taken for postulated by investors, who on Tuesday will no doubt grasp for insights about ESPN ad-pricing and income approval rates; a predestine of streaming-service Hulu.com (partly owned by Disney); and a opinion for branch around a video-game business.

Even if they won’t griddle Iger on a anticipation of a Marvel deal, investors will positively need to hear some sum on Disney’s subsequent act in sequence for a batch to keep working.

Disney will news a Q2 mercantile 2013 gain on May 7, and a concentration will be on a impact of ratings pressures on broadcasting business opposite a expansion in chartering and associate fee. Close to 55% of Disney’s value comes from wire networks and another 10% from a broadcasting network.

The association has thrived on ESPNs success, and we design it to continue to do so in a deficiency of clever competitors. For a final integrate of quarters, a sports programming hulk has faced vigour on a ratings, yet has managed to equivalent it with aloft ad pricing.

Overall, we feel that given Disney’s code strength, successful franchises and marketplace presence, a expansion will find support from aloft associate fees, chartering and syndication. Additionally, we design a parks resorts business to do good on a behind of an improving economy.

See a finish investigate for Disney

ESPN Will Continue To Fuel The Growth

Disney will continue to see support from expansion in ESPN’s revenues. The sports network constitutes roughly 40% to a company’s value, according to a estimates.

We guess that a network brought tighten to $11 billion in revenues for Disney in 2012. These embody revenues from primary ESPN channel as good as a other sister channels, such as ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNEWS, ESPN Classic and ESPN Deportes. ESPN has tighten to 100 million subscribers in a U.S., that is a box for many of a large wire networks. However, ESPN’s constant value lies in a high cost per subscriber that it charges for a sports programming. This volume has augmenting from an estimated $3.65 in 2008 to $5.05 in 2012. The chronological expansion has resulted from multi-year programming contracts that mention annual cost increase, postulated high direct for sports programming, rising sports programming costs and ESPN’s marketplace heading position. Going forward, a expansion in a subscription cost is approaching to delayed due to vigour from pay-TV use providers and approaching foe from NBC and Fox Fox who are formulation to launch national sports networks to contest with ESPN.

Ratings Pressure On Broadcasting Will Act As Offsetting Factor

The viewership for a U.S. broadcasting networks is disappearing and Disney’s ABC is no different. This physical decrease is being fueled by a recognition of wire programming and augmenting foe from choice video platforms such as Netflix, Amazon and others. Unlike broadcasting networks, a lot of wire networks concentration on sold genre, so formulating a constant spectator base. We design this trend to continue and act as a pivotal offsetting cause for CBS CBS’ broadcasting income growth. According to investigate organisation Magna Global, a altogether ad commitments for TV’s upfront marketplace for a stream year could boost by 2%. While a ad sales for a broadcasting networks will decrease by 2%, wire networks will see a expansion of 5% in their ad associated revenues.

The list next shows a viewership change for a biggest broadcasting networks in a U.S. for a stream season.

We guess that ABC Network’s normal viewership has declined from 3.7 million in 2007 to small underneath 3 million in 2012. This is not something that ABC can't repair. Disney has done some acquisitions in new years, essentially catering to a film business. However, a association could potentially precedence these acquired franchises or take impulse from them and deliver well-scripted programs on ABC Network. The network seems to be doing good among women aged between 18 and 34, yet it could enhance a interest to other demographics by introducing applicable programs.

Parks Resorts Will Show Strength

We design continued alleviation in Disney’s thesis parks resorts business shred driven by a improving economy, race expansion and Disney’s investments.

Theme parks are deliberate as a end for convenience activity, and therefore a assemblage is rather tied to a state of a economy and transport tourism. Consumers are some-more approaching to transport when a economy is in a improved state and discretionary spending is some-more viable. Even yet a U.S. mercantile liberation has remained sluggish, a alleviation is still there and that bodes good for a company.

One of a critical trends conversion a expansion of thesis parks attention is a judgment of park-within-a-park. Disney and a competitors have been investing to emanate mixed themes inside their parks. In further to this, Disney has also invested in record ascent and other services to urge caller experience. Last year, Disney stretched and done some changes to a Magic Kingdom thesis park in Florida that were directed during shortening a wait time for business and augmenting altogether sales. According to an estimate, Disney competence have spent tighten to $300 million on this makeover. Such investments are required to expostulate assemblage growth. They also yield Disney an event to bond with consumers in a improved approach and cross-market other association products. Disney can foster movies, sell consumer goods, foster TV programming as good as online and other games by a thesis parks.

Our cost guess for Disney stands during $56.50, implying a bonus of 10% to a marketplace price.

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PARIS — European powerhouse Studiocanal is fasten army with Disney Nordic to hurl out a bigscreen instrumentation of Jonas Jonasson’s bestseller “The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared.”

Disney Nordic will recover a pic opposite Scandinavia Dec. 25, while TeleMunchen will discharge it in Germany and Austria, and Wild Bunch in Benelux.

Meanwhile, Studiocanal will hurl out a pic in France, U.K. and Australia, and will repute it in general market, kicking off sales during Cannes.

Swedish up-and-comer Felix Herngren, creator of strike comedy skein “Solsidan,” has fabricated a expel of Swedish thesps, including Robert Gustafsson, Mia Skaringer and Johan Rheborg, and English thesp Alan Ford.

Described as “quirky and definitely unique” by Studiocanal, pic turns on a healthy 100-year-old man, Allan Karlsson, who escapes his nursing home to embark on an random journey, involving, among other surprises, a container pressed with money and some upsetting criminals.

“The book is already substantiating itself as a vital code around a world. For us as melodramatic distributors, we consider we have a leader formed on what we saw so distant of a absolute film instrumentation a producers and a partners during Disney will be delivering during a finish of a year,” pronounced Harold Van Lier, exec VP general placement during Studiocanal. “It is an impossibly cinematic story that is really comfortable and filled with feel-good humor. It will positively be one of a vital films entrance out of Scandinavia during a finish of this year.”

Added Patrick Nebout, writer during Nice FLX Pictures, “It’s a tale with a concept theme, a large heart and a clarity of amusement that travels perfectly, relocating millions of readers all over a world.”

The book has been published in some-more than 35 countries and sole some-more than 5 million copies.

Pic is constructed by Henrik Jansson-Schweizer, Nebout, Herngren and Malte Forssell for Nice FLX Pictures.

PARIS — European powerhouse Studiocanal is fasten army with Disney Nordic to hurl out a bigscreen instrumentation of Jonas Jonasson’s bestseller “The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared.”

Disney Nordic will recover a pic opposite Scandinavia Dec. 25, while TeleMunchen will discharge it in Germany and Austria, and Wild Bunch in Benelux.

Meanwhile, Studiocanal will hurl out a pic in France, U.K. and Australia, and will repute it in general market, kicking off sales during Cannes.

Swedish up-and-comer Felix Herngren, creator of strike comedy skein “Solsidan,” has fabricated a expel of Swedish thesps, including Robert Gustafsson, Mia Skaringer and Johan Rheborg, and English thesp Alan Ford.

Described as “quirky and definitely unique” by Studiocanal, pic turns on a healthy 100-year-old man, Allan Karlsson, who escapes his nursing home to embark on an random journey, involving, among other surprises, a container pressed with money and some upsetting criminals.

“The book is already substantiating itself as a vital code around a world. For us as melodramatic distributors, we consider we have a leader formed on what we saw so distant of a absolute film instrumentation a producers and a partners during Disney will be delivering during a finish of a year,” pronounced Harold Van Lier, exec VP general placement during Studiocanal. “It is an impossibly cinematic story that is really comfortable and filled with feel-good humor. It will positively be one of a vital films entrance out of Scandinavia during a finish of this year.”

Added Patrick Nebout, writer during Nice FLX Pictures, “It’s a tale with a concept theme, a large heart and a clarity of amusement that travels perfectly, relocating millions of readers all over a world.”

The book has been published in some-more than 35 countries and sole some-more than 5 million copies.

Pic is constructed by Henrik Jansson-Schweizer, Nebout, Herngren and Malte Forssell for Nice FLX Pictures.

It was all for a kids.

A cash-strapped male on vacation in Florida attacked a bank so he could take his girlfriend’s children on a Disney cruise, military said.

Cedrick Swinson, 37, allegedly hold adult a Navy Federal Credit Union bend on Thursday — as his gullible partner and her dual infants sat in a automobile outside.

Cops pronounced a North Carolina local motionless to sack a Satellite Beach organisation after realizing he was brief on money for a trip.

Driving his SUV off in a hurry, his partner reportedly asked him: “What did we do, sack a bank?”

He was pulled over within minutes, and a stolen money was found in a vehicle.

He told officers he felt “pressured” to respect his guarantee of a outing and a spoliation was finished on a “spur of a moment.”

Swinson was requisitioned and charged on robbery, grand burglary and pushing on a dangling license, reports WPTV .

It was all for a kids.

A cash-strapped male on vacation in Florida attacked a bank so he could take his girlfriend’s children on a Disney cruise, military said.

Cedrick Swinson, 37, allegedly hold adult a Navy Federal Credit Union bend on Thursday — as his gullible partner and her dual infants sat in a automobile outside.

Cops pronounced a North Carolina local motionless to sack a Satellite Beach organisation after realizing he was brief on money for a trip.

Driving his SUV off in a hurry, his partner reportedly asked him: “What did we do, sack a bank?”

He was pulled over within minutes, and a stolen money was found in a vehicle.

He told officers he felt “pressured” to respect his guarantee of a outing and a spoliation was finished on a “spur of a moment.”

Swinson was requisitioned and charged on robbery, grand burglary and pushing on a dangling license, reports WPTV .

(Image credit: Getty Images around @daylife)

You need to suppose that, during this point, a halls of House of a Mouse are paved in gold. Walt Disney Walt Disney shares shot to still aloft highs this morning, after a blockbuster opening weekend for a company’s Iron Man 3 and expectation for quarterly total due tomorrow.

Iron Man 3 reached truly drastic heights during this weekend’s box office, holding in a whopping $175.3 million. The film scored a second-largest opening weekend ever, behind usually Disney’s other mega-profitable comic-book movie: final year’s The Avengers, that took in a overwhelming $207.4 million in a initial weekend.

The residence that Walt built is truly a entirely assigned structure these days. There’s a cash-rich wire business of ABC and ESPN ESPN, a thesis parks and a namesake film studio. In a film unit, Disney has skeleton to recover normal vehicles–Planes, entrance in August, is seen as a intensity contender to a hugely renouned Cars franchise–and to keep a folks in spandex bustling too. Disney has dubbed a subsequent line-up of superhero facilities as Phase 2, with skeleton for Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of a Galaxy, The Avengers 2, Ant-Man and presumably more.

As Phase 1 (Thor, Captain America, Iron Man 1 and 2, The Avengers) proved, these films furnish a suggestive outcome on a company’s bottom-line. After The Avengers strike theaters final summer, Disney’s studio business requisitioned $313 million in fiscal-third-quarter profit, compared to only $49 million a year earlier. (Avengers wound adult grossing some-more than $600 million.) Company-wide distinction increasing 22.5% to $1.84 billion, violence Wall Street‘s foresee for $1.69 billion.

For now, investors are focused on second-quarter results, which, unfortunately for shareholders, will not be buoyed by any good film. Analysts still design a association to grow gain by 22.5% to $1.4 billion. Revenue is seen rising 9% to $10.5 billion.

Shares of Disney increasing 0.7% to $65.28 in pre-market trading. The stock’s lengthy, lofty run–the batch scarcely doubled in 3 years– has indeed pushed adult a multiple. Shares fetch 18.9 times brazen estimated gain of $3.45 a share. This a none-too-light reward over media peers like Time Warner Time Warner (16.4 times), CBS CBS (14.9) and Viacom (14.3).

Reach Abram Brown during abrown@forbes.com.

(Image credit: Getty Images around @daylife)

You need to suppose that, during this point, a halls of House of a Mouse are paved in gold. Walt Disney Walt Disney shares shot to still aloft highs this morning, after a blockbuster opening weekend for a company’s Iron Man 3 and expectation for quarterly total due tomorrow.

Iron Man 3 reached truly drastic heights during this weekend’s box office, holding in a whopping $175.3 million. The film scored a second-largest opening weekend ever, behind usually Disney’s other mega-profitable comic-book movie: final year’s The Avengers, that took in a overwhelming $207.4 million in a initial weekend.

The residence that Walt built is truly a entirely assigned structure these days. There’s a cash-rich wire business of ABC and ESPN ESPN, a thesis parks and a namesake film studio. In a film unit, Disney has skeleton to recover normal vehicles–Planes, entrance in August, is seen as a intensity contender to a hugely renouned Cars franchise–and to keep a folks in spandex bustling too. Disney has dubbed a subsequent line-up of superhero facilities as Phase 2, with skeleton for Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of a Galaxy, The Avengers 2, Ant-Man and presumably more.

As Phase 1 (Thor, Captain America, Iron Man 1 and 2, The Avengers) proved, these films furnish a suggestive outcome on a company’s bottom-line. After The Avengers strike theaters final summer, Disney’s studio business requisitioned $313 million in fiscal-third-quarter profit, compared to only $49 million a year earlier. (Avengers wound adult grossing some-more than $600 million.) Company-wide distinction increasing 22.5% to $1.84 billion, violence Wall Street‘s foresee for $1.69 billion.

For now, investors are focused on second-quarter results, which, unfortunately for shareholders, will not be buoyed by any good film. Analysts still design a association to grow gain by 22.5% to $1.4 billion. Revenue is seen rising 9% to $10.5 billion.

Shares of Disney increasing 0.7% to $65.28 in pre-market trading. The stock’s lengthy, lofty run–the batch scarcely doubled in 3 years– has indeed pushed adult a multiple. Shares fetch 18.9 times brazen estimated gain of $3.45 a share. This a none-too-light reward over media peers like Time Warner Time Warner (16.4 times), CBS CBS (14.9) and Viacom (14.3).

Reach Abram Brown during abrown@forbes.com.