Disney Channels Worldwide prexy Rich Ross has been named chairman of Walt Disney Studios. He’ll oversee production, distribution and marketing for all of Disney’s pic labels, including Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone, Miramax and Disney/Pixar. In addition, he’ll also head Disney’s theatrical and music groups. Variety

Not going to lie, I thought that said Rick Ross at first glance. Now THAT would have been something to write about!

I blame Jamie Fox singing “Blame it on the Apple Juice” right now on Leno for that.

In a major shake-up of its executive ranks, Universal Pictures has dismissed chairmen Marc Shmuger and David Linde.

In their place, marketing exec Adam Fogelson has been promoted to chairman of Universal Pictures. Donna Langley has been named co-chairman, while Rick Finkelstein, already vice chairman and COO, will acts as a “key strategic adviser” to both.

Fogelson will report to Universal president and CEO Ron Meyer and will oversee the company’s worldwide motion picture group, which includes movies, home entertainment and licensing, among other aspects.

Shmuger and Linde extended deals with major Universal suppliers such as Imagine and Working Title, set deals with toy company Hasbro, comic book company Dark Horse and the estate of Robert Ludlum.

But, with the exception of the sequel “Fast & Furious,” Universal’s 2009 boxoffice returns hit one setback after another. Neither the adult-skewing romantic comedy “Duplicity” nor the drama “State of Play” could climb past the $40 million mark. “Land of the Lost,” which aimed to corral the family audience, stalled at $50 million.

Sacha Baron’s Cohen’s gonzo comedy “Bruno” took in $60 million, but fell well short of the comedian’s 2006 “Borat,” which had a domestic take of $128.5 million. And the Adam Sandler comedy “Funny People” stalled at just $52 million.

The studio squeezed domestic returns of $97 million out of the Michael Mann/Johnny Depp gangster movie “Public Enemies” — and the movie has taken in another $99 million abroad — but it was still seen as a pricey exercise that fell short.

What sealed the fate of the duo, insiders say, was not the boxoffice, but the lack of team-building that went on in the aftermath of the disappointments. Infighting between execs were a regular occurrence, while on-the-lot producers openly showed their displeasure. Hollywood Reporter

No it hasn’t been the stellar year for Universal Pictures. Hopefully the next release Couple’s Retreat will fair better or The Vampires Assistant; I’m sure Universal is hoping to reek some benefit of the Twilight phenomena with that one. November 6th is the release of the alien thriller The Fourth Kind and Christmas sees the release of It’s Complicated that stars Steve Martin, Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep.

Although Miley Cyrus is one step closer to being a superhero,I don’t think this spells drastic changes for the Marvel structure just yet. Think about it. Disney was built on the young girl/young female adult audience . This now opens up the door to attract the young boy/young male adult audience and a whole new world for the Mouse. Like reported in the HR article, Disney installed their new channel Disney’s XD which is geared for young males; but now with Marvel in their helm, not only will they get the young males, they will get a whole generation of comic book readers. You just don’t know how much money is going to be made from this. Well, Robert Iger does anyway.

Call me crazy but I have faith that Marvel will do nothing but thrive off of this deal. There is no way Disney will crap up Marvel to the depths of where the DC comic is. Don’t get me wrong, the Batman revival is doing OK (thanks Heath!)  but Superman came, concurred and died again. Woops Superman:Man of Steel is due in 2011, five years later. Did you even know that? My point exactly.

In an announcement that has caught two studios by surprise, Penn has pulled out of two films, citing personal reasons.

Penn has informed Universal and Imagine that he will be unable to star in the Asger Leth-directed drama “Cartel,” which was to be his next movie. His role will be recast. Studio is putting together a list of actors now and hopes to stick with an early fall start date. Variety

I think this is the best decision.  I applaud him and his wife actress Robin Wright Penn for trying to make their marriage work instead of throwing in the towel. Hopefully this will end the back and forth divorce filing. Now if only more actors had the balls to stop working when their personal life is suffering.

A Spoonful of Sherman — Richard Sherman Chats About His Remarkable Career

“Chim Chim Cher-ee.” “I Wanna Be Like You.” “It’s a Small World.” They’re the songs that we all grew up with, the classics — and they were all written by Richard and Robert Sherman. The Sherman Brothers were truly a legendary Disney creative force, writing songs for TV, Theme Park attractions, and films — whatever Walt Disney required. And in 1990, they were formally inducted as Disney Legends, acknowledging their many accomplishments.

Now “the boys,” as they were known to their colleagues, are the subjects of a new documentary film by the same name. “The Boys” was a labor of love for filmmakers Jeff and Greg Sherman — cousins, and the sons of Robert and Richard respectively. In it, the cousins remember their fathers’ careers, and the distance between them in later years. It’s a wonderful and touching movie that has taken years to make the journey to the big screen at last.

In honor of “The Boys” — and “the boys” … — we sat down with Richard Sherman to discuss his amazing Disney career. Appropriately enough, we met in the very soundstage on the Walt Disney Studio Lot where some of the songs for “Mary Poppins” had been recorded, as Richard recalled.

He remembers Walt Disney well, as a remarkable boss to work for. “You had to be good — you couldn’t just be ordinary, you had to be incredible!” Richard laughs. “And everybody knew that, and everybody broke their butts to get stuff as good as they possibly could. And he’d look at it, and he’d say ‘Okay, that’ll work.’ “It was the highest form of praise any Disney employee could hope for — then later they might hear from a colleague that Walt absolutely loved what they did.

It was a demanding environment that pushed everyone to perform at the very highest level, but it was also a highly rewarding one. Richard recalls, “It was a great big brotherhood. Everybody cared about everybody, and we all wanted the projects to succeed. We all loved and respected Walt. We’d have our disagreements, but basically it was a very warm environment.”

As with every detail of his Studio’s creations, Walt was very hands-on with the songs created by the Sherman brothers — and knew what he wanted to hear. “Walt was very appreciative of music,” Richard says. “He could hear a finished product from what I played for him — that’s an amazing talent! If it was a song that a young woman would be singing to a little boy, and I sang it with my husky baritone, he’d hear the woman singing to the little boy.” Often on Friday afternoons, he would ask the brothers to come to his office and Richard would perform “Feed the Birds,” Walt’s favorite song.

The creative partnership between the Sherman brothers and the Studio began in the late ’50s, as Richard recalls. “We began at Disney because of Annette Funicello. She was the star of the Mouseketeers and she had some big hits with some of our songs, like ‘Pineapple Princess” and “Tall Paul.” We were asked by the Studio to come up with a song that she could sing in a film — we didn’t know that Walt Disney himself had asked for this!

“We wrote a little tune called ‘Strummin’ Song.’ We brought it up to the Studio and played it for Jimmy Johnson, head of music publishing at the time, and he said, ‘That sounds great — we’ve got to play it for Walt.’ And we said, ‘Walt who? You’re kidding me!’ But he said, ‘Walt OK’s everything.’

“Then when we met Walt, he started describing the wrong picture to us. He said, ‘This picture is about two girls who meet in summer camp,’ [Walt must have been working on 'The Parent Trap' at the time, and gotten his films mixed up] and we were dying because we had written the song for Annette’s picture, ‘The Horsemasters’! But we played it for him and he said, ‘Yeah, that’ll work.’ Then he gave us the script for ‘The Parent Trap,’ and we wrote songs for that film as well. Eventually, we wound up writing songs for six different films. And that’s when he got the confidence to let us come up with some ideas for this book called ‘Mary Poppins’ — and that’s how it began.”

The brothers realized that “Mary Poppins” was truly going to be a unique musical opportunity. “We did songs for about 12 Disney films and TV projects before ‘Poppins.’ We did songs for the television shows, for the Parks, everything. But all the while we were working on ‘Poppins’ ideas and ‘Poppins’ songs.” In fact, in addition to writing the unforgettable songs for “Mary Poppins,” the brothers were instrumental in helping to adapt the disconnected stories in the “Mary Poppins” books into a movie with a strong storyline, along with screenwriters Bill Walsh and Don DeGradi.

But another film — Walt’s last as a hands-on creative force — just might be Richard’s favorite to recall. As he says, “‘The Jungle Book’ was the most fun we ever had working on a movie. We had Louis Prima, Phil Harris, and Sterling Holloway — all these wonderful talents!”

And yet it was a movie that almost wasn’t a Sherman brothers project at all: “We came in late to ‘The Jungle Book,’ because the picture was rejected when it was done, except for one really fine song — ‘Bare Necessities.’ All of the rest — well, put it this way, Walt didn’t like it!” Richard chuckles. “And he didn’t like the storyline. So we came in because they needed a new score except for the one song. So we did it, and it was fun! Louis Prima’s rendition of ‘I Wanna Be Like You’ was definitely a high point.”

Songwriting has truly been Richard’s life — as his son Greg says, “Growing up, we had a piano in every room!” and he is still ever-willing to tickle the ivories.

“I’ve loved music ever since I was a little boy. And if you need something Japanese, I know how to write the flavor of Japanese — it won’t be Japanese, but it will feel like it. If it’s India, I can hear how it will sound,” he tells us. “That’s what I do! I can’t do much of anything else, but I can write songs.”

And from “Strummin’ Song” through “Bedknobs and Broomsticks,” “The Happiest Millionaire,” “The Tigger Movie,” and dozens more, those songs have made us all richer — and a little more tuneful.

Disney Insider

Don’t worry none of your favorite actors have contracted the virus but it has affected film openings in Mexico.  20th Century Fox has already cancelled the Mexico premiere of Xmen Origins and delayed the opening for a later date. Paramount has also postponed the opening of Star Trek until furthur notice. Be sure that more delays will follow.

@starblight I have responded. The casting is complete and we did not discriminate against anyone. I am done talking about it.7:29 AM Apr 20th from web
http://twitter.com/LeDoctor

That is from The Last Airbender’s producer Frank Marshall. The Last Airbender, film due out next year, is being directed by M. Knight Shyamalan based on the Nickelodeon’s popular cartoon Avatar:The Last Airbender

Avatar: The Last Airbender takes place in a fantasy world that is home to humans, fantastic animals, and spirits. Human civilization is divided into four nations: the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Air Nomads, and the Fire Nation. Each nation has its own natural element, on which it bases its society. Within each nation exists an order called “Benders” who have the ability to manipulate the eponymous element of their nation. The show’s creators assigned each Bending art its own style of martial arts, causing it to inherit the advantages and weaknesses of the martial arts it was assigned. The Bending types are Waterbending, Earthbending, Firebending, and Airbending. Wikipedia

The problem is Avatar is based on Asian culture and there are no Asian lead actors in the film.There is not alot of representations of minority in Hollywood as a whole but Asians really get next to nothing. It’s bad enough they get typecasted into certain roles, but taking away those roles completely? Especially from young Asian actors who would have loved the opportunity.  Paramount dropped the ball here.

The pics and episodes, which will be streamed on a separate section on YouTube as free ad-supported content, encompass a host of library titles from studios including Sony and Lionsgate and television networks as well as a number of indie pics.

The deal comes in the wake of a previous YouTube pact with MGM for television shows and full-length films and follows a pact with Disney for shortform excerpts of content from ABC and ESPN.

Sony’s James Bond tentpole “Casino Royale” and CBS’ new mystery series “Harper’s Island,” as well as pics including Morgan Spurlock’s “Super Size Me” and Richard Linklater’s “Slacker,” are part of the deals.

Hollywood Reporter

Even though Google may be sweating due to their competion for streaming content, Youtube will always remain the top site for uploading personal videos. Expanding Youtube isn’t the only thing Google is looking at. Twitter, the new #onlinetrend is being eyed by Google, however,Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone plays downs the rumors as just talk between companies.  Ok Biz. Give it another year plus $$$ and it will be Google presents Twitter with a list of celebrities,news anchors and politicans you can harrass with 140 characters.