Disney

You want to take the family to Disney. Think part time job, bank loan or second mortgage first!

If you’re a fan of Disney baddies like cigar-smoking Bill Sykes from Oliver & Company (and really, who isn’t a fan of Bill Sykes from Oliver & Company?), this news is relevant to your tobacco-stained interests: The Walt Disney Company has banned all depictions of smoking from all of its films from all of its child-oriented labels (including Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm) rated G through PG-13. Via a press release:

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far removed from the notion of a third Star Wars trilogy every getting off the ground, rumors and development of a live-action Star Wars TV series buzzed about in every direction. We’d thought for certain that The Force Awakens, for all its sequels and spinoffs had firmly put that idea to bed, but a new rumor suggests Disney may draft a new Star Wars TV series to shoot in between films.

Whitney Avalon is back with another princess rap battle. This time she's joined forces with Sara Michelle Gellar to pit Cinderella against Belle. See who wins.

The news out of Disney’s shareholder meeting keeps on coming. This one isn’t much of a surprise: Disney is making Frozen 2. In a related story, the sky is blue and water is wet (until a princess with freezing powers comes along and turns it into ice).

For months it’s been rumored, now it’s confirmed: Rian Johnson, the writer and director of Brick and Looper is officially the writer and director of Star Wars: Episode VIII. Disney CEO Robert Iger also revealed to company shareholders today that Episode VIII has its official release date: May 26, 2017 — 40 years and a single day after the release of the very first Star Wars back in 1977.

The name “Disney” brings to mind images of fair princesses, charming princes, magical fairy tales, and simple happily ever afters. In recent years, though, Disney has begun rethinking their classic properties, and releasing more thematically complex versions of their famous films. Sleeping Beauty became Maleficent, which turned a wicked witch into a sympathetic anti-hero; a whole mess of fairy tales turned into Into the Woods, where happily ever after preceded a whole bunch of death and tragedy. The ranks of Disney Princesses grew to include women like Merida, the bow-slinging heroine of Brave, and Anna and Else from Frozen, who rescued each other from an prince, rather than the other way around. Every value and concept that Disney had established and reinforced through decades of repetition was seemingly up for reconsideration and revision.

With their new Cinderella just days away, Disney is continuing its streak of turning its animated classics into live-action features with the news, via the Wall Street Journal, that Dumbo is ready to make the transition from animated elephant to ... well, still-animated elephant surrounded by live-action actors. If that idea doesn’t get your ears flapping, maybe this will: the Journal says Tim Burton will be the man who’ll direct the new Dumbo.

If you saw Big Hero 6, you fell in love with Baymax, there's just no way around it. He doesn't just save the day, he’s also lovable and sweet and cuddly. And, that's no accident. Disney animators based a lot of Baymax’s look on a young child. His walk was specifically modeled after a toddler with a full diaper. These are just some of the super duper facts packed into the latest episode of You Think You Know Movies, which returns to Disney and Marvel's Big Hero 6!

Even though we were told, once upon a time, that Disney and Pixar had no plans for 'Toy Story 4,' it seems that those plans have changed.