The actor claims that the studio breached her contract by releasing her standalone Marvel adventure on Disney+
Scarlett Johansson is suing Disney over the recent release of Black Widow.
The actor is claiming that the studio’s decision to launch her first, and last, Marvel standalone film on Disney+ as well as cinemas is a breach of contract.
Continue reading...The company has been addressing its historical racism and sexism, adding disclaimers to films and altering theme park rides. But these moves have stirred contempt as well as approval
Very little ammunition is required for a culture war these days, so long as your troops are primed to mobilise at the drop of a blog. Julie Tremaine and Katie Dowd, two writers for the online newspaper SFGate, discovered this last month. Their review of the revamped Snow White ride at Disneyland was generally positive, but queried a new scene showing the prince giving Snow White the all-important “true love’s kiss”.
“A kiss he gives to her without her consent, while she’s asleep, which cannot possibly be true love if only one person knows it’s happening,” they wrote. “It’s hard to understand why the Disneyland of 2021 would choose to add a scene with such old-fashioned ideas of what a man is allowed to do to a woman.”
Matters escalated quickly and predictably. Within 24 hours, the review was reported across Twitter and conservative media. Fox News ran 13 segments on the story in one day: “Cancel culture going after Snow White”; “The woke movement taking aim at Disneyland”, etc. Senator John Kennedy was brought on to express his disdain: “We are so screwed … I don’t know where these jackaloons come up with this stuff.” The UK’s Sun chimed in: “Snow White may be CANCELED” [sic]. As did Piers Morgan in the Daily Mail: “Leave Snow White’s Prince alone, you insufferable woke brats.” Then Fox News reported on that: “Piers Morgan slams consent criticism over revamped Snow White ride.” And so forth. All of them triggered by a single paragraph in an online review.
Disney increasingly finds itself caught in the crossfire of these skirmishes. Understandably, to some extent, since it is the biggest target. Already a byword for family entertainment, Disney is now the dominant purveyor of popular culture following its gradual acquisitions of Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, Avatar, Alien, The Muppets, The Simpsons and numerous other household-name properties. But having successfully captured entertainment’s centre ground, Disney now finds itself under attack on both flanks. From one side, it is criticised for its old-fashioned and bigoted legacy; from the other, it is criticised for being too “woke”. What’s an unprecedentedly powerful media corporation to do?
Hayden Christensen returns as Darth Vader in the Obi-Wan Kenobi mini-series, while Chadwick Boseman won’t be replaced for Black Panther sequel
Disney has unveiled a huge slew of new projects for the next decade at an investor event.
Speaking on Thursday, Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy announced that the new Star Wars film, Rogue Squadron, will be directed by Wonder Woman’s Patty Jenkins – the first time a female director has taken charge of one of the franchise films.
Continue reading...The pop star’s Disney+ movie about quarantine album Folklore reveals the potency of her songwriting, though it’s hazy on any ‘pandemic epiphanies’
Pre-pandemic, few artists were so keenly attuned to the music industry’s calendar as Taylor Swift. She timed her album releases for awards contention and singles to sustain her world tours; the promotional cycle for 1989, released in 2014, seemed to go on for years. With coronavirus, that “circus” – as she puts it on Mirrorball, one of a few songs on her “quarantine album”, Folklore, that address the pandemic directly – was abruptly called off.
Stripped of those structures, “this lockdown could have been a time where I absolutely lost my mind”, Swift says in The Long Pond Studio Sessions, a film that explores the making and meaning of Folklore. Instead, in a matter of months, she created an album as good as any she has ever written. She collaborated remotely with the National’s Aaron Dessner, writing to his musical sketches and self-recording her performances at home.
Continue reading...Mulan is first blockbuster to go straight to streaming in response to Covid-19 shuttering cinemas
Disney’s decision to bypass cinemas and offer its latest big budget film Mulan directly to streaming subscribers for $29.99 could signal the beginning of the end for the traditional movie-going experience – and forever change the long-established business model underpinning the Hollywood blockbuster.
The surprise move has stunned cinema owners, who had been banking on the film, along with Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi thriller Tenet, to jump-start box office takings as theatre chains struggle to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
Continue reading...Elephant will launch on Disney+ days after Sussexes step back from being senior royals
The Duchess of Sussex is to narrate a Disney film which documents the journey of a family of elephants across the Kalahari desert in southern Africa, which will launch three days after she and Prince Harry “step back” from being senior royals.
Meghan will voice the Disneynature documentary Elephant, which will be available on Disney+ from 3 April, and is her first major acting role since becoming a royal.
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