• Keep those calendars marked. The Jungle Book begins sneak peek screenings at DCA and Disney's Hollywood Studios on March 18. Frozen--Live at the Hyperion opens at DCA May 27 and Rivers of Light, the new nighttime water show at Disney's Animal Kingdom, debuts April 22.
• It was no coincidence the Walt Disney Company had its annual shareholders meeting in Chicago last week. It was a fitting reminder that the Windy City was where Walt was born. To mark the occasion, Bob Iger announced that the Company would donate $250,000 towards the restoration of the Walt Disney Birthplace.
• Disney Cruise Line will launch two new cruise ships in 2021 and 2023, bringing their fleet total to six. The as-yet-unnamed ships will have 1,250 staterooms each and will be larger than DCL's current biggest ships, the Disney Dream and the Disney Fantasy.
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens comes out on Digital HD on April 1 and Blu-ray on April 5. Want a little variety with your trip to a galaxy far, far away? Retailers Target, Walmart, Best Buy and the Disney Store are all offering unique packaging and/or bonus materials.
• Big Hero 6 is moving to the small screen. An animated series based on the hit film will debut on Disney XD in 2017.
• A live-action movie version of The Nutcracker Suite? Disney is working on it and Lasse Hallstrom (The Hundred-Foot Journey, Chocolat) is slated to direct.
• Ten years after the original High School Musical hit big for the Disney Channel, casting calls are going out for High School Musical 4. Jeffrey Hornaday (Teen Beach Movie) will direct. 

Enjoy!

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There's nothing like a ticket price increase to get the Disney fan base stirred up. Make it "seasonal pricing" (or "tiered pricing" or "surge pricing"), however, and you'd better getting ready for major outrage. The price of single-day and multi-day tickets went up (for the most part) at all the Disney parks over the weekend, with single-day tickets now priced based on expected attendance. In a nutshell, you'll pay more to visit your favorite park on a busy day (say, summer or Christmastime) than you will during a quieter day (like an October weekday). What does it all mean and should you really be upset about it? Tim and Anthony sort it all out for you in this week's Inside The Mouse Castle.

Here's what else we've got going on:

• At the Academy Awards Sunday, Pixar's Inside Out was the unsurprising, but highly deserving winner of the Best Animated Feature Oscar. In their acceptance speech, director Pete Docter and producer Jonas Rivera had inspiring words about the importance of "making stuff" in the face of adversity.
• Rest in peace, Jack Lindquist, who passed away Sunday at the age of 88. Jack was a marketing genius who became Disneyland's first president and, later, a Disney Legend. His memoir, In Service to the Mouse, should be required reading for every Disney fan. Our condolences to Jack's friends and family. He will be greatly missed.
• Luigi's Rollickin' Roadsters will officially open at Disney California Adventure on March 7. Annual Passholders can get an exclusive preview of the ride on March 4. This looks like a very fun ride--and hopefully a more reliable replacement for Luigi's Flying Tires.
• Guests attending the Food & Wine Festival at Disney California Adventure in April can take part in special Beverage Seminars at Sonoma Terrace. Fifteen dollars will get you admission and three samples of select beers, wine or spirits. To purchase tickets, visit https://disneyland.disney.go.com/dining/disney-california-adventure/food-and-wine-festival-beverage-seminars.
• Marvel superheroes and villains will take each other on in Marvel Battlegrounds, the new four-player play set for Disney Infinity 3.0. A modern-look Captain America comes with the set and new character figures Ant-Man, Vision and Black Panther will also be available. Purchase the set online or in stores on March 15.
• Today's parting question: Does the thought of an It's a Small World movie make you cringe as much as us? Thought so.

Enjoy!

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• Bob Iger officially confirmed what the rest of us pretty much already knew. There will be a standalone Han Solo film joining the Star Wars universe. No other details were mentioned except for a release date sometime in May 2018.
• Disney and Lucasfilm are in trouble with the Health and Safety Executive, Britain's answer to OSHA. Foodles Productions, A Disney subsidiary that oversaw production of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, was cited for safety violations related to the on-set accident at Pinewood Studios that injured Harrison Ford. Ford's leg was broken in June 2014 when it was struck by a hydraulic door aboard the Millennium Falcon.
• It's official! Kurt Russell has joined the cast of Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2. Is he playing Peter Quill/Star-Lord's long-lost dad? We can only hope.
• The Food & Wine Festival is coming to Disney California Adventure on weekends from April 1 to May 1. We're already making travel plans.
• Coinciding with that, the Mad T Party is disappearing down the rabbit hole at DCA on March 30. No word yet on what will replace the nighttime dance party. Freeze the Night again? Something Star Wars-ish? We'll see.
• We're starting to like what we're seeing in the new trailer for Alice Through the Looking Glass. A lot of it has to do with P!nk's kick-ass cover of "White Rabbit."
• It was inevitable. Frozen is headed to Broadway. A stage musical based on Disney's runaway animated hit will debut in New York in spring 2018. Pre-Broadway performances can be seen in Denver in August 2017.

Enjoy!

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Pixar's Inside Out dominated the Annie Awards over the weekend, winning 10 awards out of the 11 categories it was nominated in. The journey into the mind of an 11-year old was named Best Animated Feature and Pete Docter was named Best Director. Inside Out also took trophies home for writing, storyboarding, editing, character design, character animation, music and production design. And finally, Phyllis Smith received a much-deserved Annie for providing the voice of Sadness. It was a busy night for Team Disney as their animated TV series Disney's Mickey Mouse received three Annies (storyboarding, editing and music). The Good Dinosaur, Wander Over Yonder, Gravity Falls and Avengers: Age of Ultron all received one Annie each.

Tim and Anthony recap the Annies and keep things animated with these other entertaining items in this week's Inside The Mouse Castle:

• Happy Birthday, Disney California Adventure! Disneyland's sister park turned 15 years old on Monday.
• Fresh off his Super Bowl 50 win over the Carolina Panthers, Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning visited Disneyland on Monday and--as tradition dictates--was honored with a victory parade down Main Street, U.S.A.
• On Super Bowl Sunday, Disney debuted new trailers for The Jungle Book and Captain America: Civil War. One we were pretty excited for. The other not so much. You'll never guess which is which. Or maybe you have already.
• The Mouse Castle sends our condolences to the family and friends of Daniel Gerson. The screenwriter passed away in Los Angeles Saturday at the age of 49. Gerson co-wrote the scripts for Monsters, Inc. and Big Hero 6, among others. Rest in peace.
• This has us majorly excited: "Weird Al" Yankovic will lend his voice and musical talents to a new animated series on Disney XD from the creators of Phineas and Ferb. Milo Murphy's Law will follow the adventures of Milo, the fictional great-great-great-great grandson of the Murphy's Law namesake. Yankovic will play Milo with a voice cast that includes Christian Slater, Vanessa Williams, Sarah Chalke, Jemaine Clement and Mackenzie Phillips. The show premieres this fall.
• Want your house to smell like Disneyland? Anthology Candles has created a line of scented candles that borrow from your favorite park aromas like Dole Whips, churros, the Main Street Bakery and even the Haunted Mansion. That's all well and good, but call us when you've perfected Pirates of the Caribbean Grotto.

Enjoy!

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• Oscar nominations were announced last week and films under the Disney umbrella fared well, although there were a few disappointments. Neither Star Wars: The Force Awakens nor Inside Out landed Best Picture nominations. Star Wars was recognized with five noms in mostly technical categories, while Inside Out landed nominations for Best Animated Feature and Original Screenplay. Sanjay's Super Team was nominated for Best Animated Short Film while Cinderella did likewise for Costume Design. The Oscars will air on February 28 on ABC.
• Bob Weis is the new president of Walt Disney Imagineering. He's been heading up the Shanghai Disney Resort project (which we now know is opening June 16) and was creative lead for the Disney California Adventure expansion and the original Disney/MGM Studios (now Disney's Hollywood Studios).
• The Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show will end at Disney's Hollywood Studios on April 2 to make way for the upcoming Star Wars and Toy Story expansions at the park.
• Inside The Mouse Castle sends its condolences to the family and friends of former Disney Channel star Michael Galeota and actor Brian Bedford. Galeota passed away January 10 at age 31. Bedford, a respected stage and screen actor who voiced the title role in Disney's animated Robin Hood, died at the age of 80 on January 13.
• It's hard to believe, but Disney's High School Musical is ten years old. The Disney Channel celebrated with an anniversary special this week featuring the original cast.

Enjoy!

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• Actor John Boyega likes the look of the Star Wars VIII script, calling it "much darker" than The Force Awakens. Should we expect The First Order Strikes Back?
• Ryan Coogler (Creed) has been tapped to direct Marvel's Black Panther. The movie will star Chadwick Boseman and Andy Serkis and is scheduled for a February 2018 release.
• Pixar's Inside Out took the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature Film on Sunday night, but how will it fare with the Oscars? We'll find out Thursday at 5:30 a.m. PT when the Academy Award nominations are announced.
• A retrospective of Disney artist Mel Shaw's work will open at the Walt Disney Family Museum on January 13 and run through September 12. It will be curated by film producer (and friend of The Mouse Castle) Don Hahn.

Enjoy!

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Happy New Year!

Anthony and I are back from our holiday hiatus and we're really concerned about George Lucas' happiness; as in his less than enthusiastic comments about Star Wars: The Force Awakens and, oh yeah, likening the Walt Disney Company to "white slavers."

Bad form, George.

To his credit, the Jedi master did retract the "white slaver" comment, calling it "very inappropriate." He then went on to praise Disney for their 40 year-long working relationship.

Still, do you get the feeling George is just a little bitter over selling Lucasfilm to Disney despite pocketing $4 billion in the deal?

We're concerned, George. We want to help. Let's talk about it in this week's episode of Inside The Mouse Castle.

And while we're at it, let's talk about a few other things too.

• Star Wars: The Force Awakens is barreling through box office record after box office record. It's at $1.5 billion worldwide and climbing steadily. Will it break Avatar's all-time record? We think so.
• Bob Iger has confirmed what we pretty much already knew. There will be a fifth Indiana Jones movie. What? You thought they were going to keep Indy locked up like the Ark of the Covenant? We hear top men are already working on the project. Top. Men.
• Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn saw an early cut of Captain America: Civil War and thinks it's one of the all-time best Marvel movies. Like you needed another reason to see the flick when it opens May 6.
• Gravity Falls will air its final episode on February 15. We are sad.
• Disney park guests will be able to see previews of Zootopia at Disney California Adventure and Disney's Hollywood Studios beginning January 21. You can also find Zootopia porn pretty much anywhere on the Internet if you just Google it. This has Anthony and I concerned...and awkwardly giggling. 

Enjoy!

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