Archive for September, 2009

Hoping to build excitement, the studio begins an early rollout for its first hand-drawn animated movie in years.

First rule of movie marketing: With a hard sell, sell the faithful first.

So it was with Walt Disney Co., which on Thursday used a gathering of thousands of loyal Disney fans to unveil “The Princess and the Frog,” perhaps the studio’s riskiest movie in years.

Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger used the assembly of devoted followers at the Anaheim Convention Center, many of them sporting Mickey T-shirts, to screen a major portion of the film that marks the studio’s return to hand-drawn animation.

The film and its subject matter — a contemporary twist on the fairy tale of a frog prince who desperately wants to be human again — are reminiscent of classic Disney tales of yore. Indeed, the movie adds another tiara-wearing princess — the first African American one — to a lineage of cinematic royalty that dates back all the way to 1937’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”

Iger took the stage at the start of Disney’s D23 Expo, where attendees posed for photographs near a steel-and-plexiglass replica of Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage, sat for tea with the Mad Hatter from Tim Burton’s upcoming noir interpretation of “Alice in Wonderland” and played a video-game version of the “Toy Story Midway Mania” theme park attraction. The expo is conceived as sort of an in-house Comic-Con to whip up enthusiasm for Disney’s movies, TV shows, video games and theme park attractions.

“Nowhere do we shine more brightly than in classic Disney animation,” Iger said to applause as he announced the 30-minute screening, adding, “Promise me you’ll go see the rest when it opens.”

Extracting such an assurance from hard-core Disney fans might not be difficult. But with the wider public, “Princess and the Frog” presents potential obstacles. Read the rest of this entry »

Disney Animation Studios has introduced a card deck with 14 different card with the Princess and the Frog characters on it. The cards are meant to “predict” your future with tarot cards (to get the fans into the voodoo spirit of the movie).

By Willem de Vocht,

At the last press conference given by Disney, the villain in the coming movie “Princess and the Frog” was finally revealed. Dr. Facilier, a voodoo doctor who turned the story’s main character in a frog, will be the first real remarkable and recognizable villain in the Disney stable, after Hades in the Disney classic “Hercules” in 1997. The part will be voiced by actor Keith Davids, a rather unknown actor having played parts in e.g. Platoon and voiced many documentaries. Several pictures of Dr. Facilier were released during the conference, which I will put in this post. I personally can’t wait until this movie hits the theaters on December 11th and to see this villain in full glory.