disney

Universal Pictures and Walt Disney are close to finalizing a deal that would all but guarantee the digitizing of the nation's movie theaters, sources told CNET News.

Universal and Disney have agreed in principle to join a consortium of theater chains and motion picture studios that will finance the cost of modernizing movie houses, the sources said.

The sources were commenting on news of the deal, first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

For years, the high costs of outfitting theaters with digital projectors, servers, and other technology stymied modernization efforts. It was always believed that it would take … Read more

Happy 21st birthday, Natali. We hope you're having a great time out there on the best, err...West Coast! Even though Jeff is mad at me for not getting Morgan Spurlock on the show, we squash the beef and get going on a great show. Today we talk about magic noodles, the Facebook movie, and Steve Jobs' impending death. We also debut the best set of voicemails ever played on The 404. No hype!

I can't stop reiterating this sentence in my head: Morgan Spurlock served me ice cream cake on a boat in New York city last … Read more

Most of the largest motion picture studios are backing a plan that would create interoperability among digital rights management schemes.

TechCrunch is reporting that Sony Pictures is behind the plan that has the support of most of the top film companies--other than those backed by Walt Disney. A Sony spokesman could not be reached for comment Tuesday evening.

According to Michael Arrington, the plan calls for "a set of policy decisions and a software and services framework that will allow interoperability of various formats and DRM schemes that are currently splintering the market."

The plan also calls for … Read more

Disney launching a social network doesn't sound like anything new, but this time it's catering to parents.

On Wednesday, Disney's Internet unit introduced DisneyFamily.com, a social network for parents to create a profile, swap advice, get cooking tips, and clip coupons.

The Web site is just one of many social networks from Disney, yet it's one of the company's first online efforts catered solely to adults. Disney's Walt Disney Internet group runs several prime time online kids' hangouts, including Pirates of the Caribbean Online, Toontown Online, and Club Penguin, which it acquired.

Although … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--While many music industry executives are crying in their soup, Walt Disney Music Group's Damon Whiteside is singing "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah."

Whiteside, senior vice president of marketing of Walt Disney Records, saw a whopping 60 percent rise in music sales from 2006 to 2007 because of the tween and young-teen music craze led by Disney star Miley Cyrus. Meanwhile, overall music industry sales were down 17 percent in the same period because of digital downloads and pirated music online.

"It's thanks to the tween and younger teens that the music business is staying alive," Whiteside … Read more

Fandango, the movie-ticketing company owned by Comcast since 2007, announced on Monday that it has acquired Movies.com, a movie news and reviews aggregator. Movies.com had previously been owned by Disney's Walt Disney Internet Group.

Financial details were not disclosed.

The aim of the acquisition is to provide a one-stop movie hub for the Web, executives said.

"We are pleased to expand our rich-entertainment reach through this strategic addition of Movies.com," Chuck Davis, CEO of Fandango, said in a statement. The ticketing site currently sells admission to 15,000 theaters in the United States. "… Read more

GOOD HOPE, Ala.--Somewhere along Interstate 65, on my way to Huntsville, Ala., the home of Space Camp, I hit exactly 1,000 miles of driving since Road Trip 2008 began.

I'm sure that there will be many more of these milestones, since I still have many, many more places to visit on this trip, and since last year's trip clocked 4,891 miles.

Still, I love to commemorate these round numbers, so bear with me.

It's been a busy 1,000 miles. Over the last week, Road Trip 2008 has taken me to a wide variety … Read more

I guess this is what Disney would consider edgy: the company has reportedly acquired Ideal Bite, a "sassy" eco-focused e-mail newsletter that explicitly states it's "not for readers under age 18." The price was about $15 million, PaidContent reported. That's a lot smaller than Club Penguin, which Disney acquired for $350 million last year.

Ideal Bite is small even as far as e-mail lists go--it's no DailyCandy--but its demographic was likely of interest to a buyer like Disney. The site's median household income is $82,000, press materials state; the median … Read more

EPCOT CENTER, Fla.--Ah, lawyers.

I was sitting inside a small dome, antsy to get going on the special Segway tour of this famous theme park that I had arranged. But before they would let me or any of the others on the tour head out and ride around on our gyroscopic human transporters, we had to sit through more than half an hour of tedious, but entirely practical, training.

As our instructors told us how to get on and how to get off, how to speed up and how to slow down and so many other crucial things, I … Read more