Tag: disney

Shah Rukh Khan, Aryan Khan reunite as Mufasa and Simba; AbRam Khan makes debut as young Mufasa in Mufasa: The Lion King Hindi trailer, watch : Bollywood News – Bollywood Hungama

Post By Entertainment , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,





Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan and his eldest son Aryan Khan are set to reprise their iconic roles as Mufasa and Simba, respectively, in the Hindi version of Disney’s highly anticipated prequel, Mufasa: The Lion King. Adding a touch of familial magic to the project, the youngest Khan, AbRam, will make his voice-acting debut as young Mufasa. The news was officially confirmed with the release of the Hindi trailer, which sent fans into a frenzy of excitement and nostalgia. The trailer showcases the grandeur and emotional depth of the story, promising a cinematic experience that will resonate with audiences of all ages.

Shah Rukh Khan, Aryan Khan reunite as Mufasa and Simba; AbRam Khan makes debut as young Mufasa in Mufasa: The Lion King Hindi trailer, watch

Shah Rukh Khan’s powerful voice and commanding presence as Mufasa in the 2019 Hindi dubbed version of The Lion King captured the hearts of millions. His portrayal of the wise and benevolent king was widely acclaimed, making him an unforgettable part of the film’s legacy. With Aryan Khan stepping into the role of the young Simba, the father-son duo created an on-screen chemistry that mirrored the heartwarming bond between the characters.

Now, as the prequel delves deeper into Mufasa’s story, AbRam Khan’s innocent voice brings a fresh and endearing dimension to the character. His portrayal of the young lion cub is sure to melt hearts and create a new generation of fans.

Talking about the association, Shah Rukh Khan shares, “Mufasa has an incredible legacy and stands as the ultimate king of the jungle, imparting his wisdom to his son, Simba. I deeply relate to him as a father and also resonate with Mufasa’s journey in the film. Mufasa: The Lion King, depicts Mufasa’s life from childhood to his rise as an incredible king, and revisiting this character has been exceptional. It’s a special collaboration for me with Disney, particularly because my sons, Aryan and AbRam, are part of this journey and sharing this experience with them is truly meaningful.”

“The ferocious Mufasa is more than just a fictional character, he embodies a spirit that continues to inspire generations, a quality Disney strives to bring with every story. When Mufasa: The Lion King was announced, we could not envision anyone other than Shah Rukh Khan and Aryan Khan returning to our family entertainer as Mufasa and Simba. Now, with AbRam joining the cast, this movie has become even more special to us. Our endeavour here is for millions of Indian audiences to enjoy this incredible story with their families!” said Bikram Duggal, Head of Studios, Disney Star.

Disney Entertainment brought the house down at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event this past weekend with a dazzling showcase of upcoming films and series. The night ended on a particularly high note with the enthralling presentation of Mufasa: The Lion King, the highly anticipated prequel exploring the origins of the beloved king of the Pride Lands. Fans were treated to a special appearance by Oscar-winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins, the film’s director.

Mufasa: The Lion King honours the legacy of the original 1994 animated masterpiece, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. It also follows the visual style established in the 2019 live-action remake, which captivated audiences worldwide by grossing a staggering $1.6 billion at the global box office.

The trailer delves into the formative years of Mufasa, exploring his unlikely rise to become one of the greatest kings. In a captivating narrative, Rafiki, the wise mandrill, recounts the legend of Mufasa to Kiara, Simba and Nala’s daughter, with Timon and Pumbaa offering their signature comedic relief.

The story unfolds through captivating flashbacks, introducing a young cub named Mufasa, orphaned and alone. Fate intervenes when he encounters Taka, a sympathetic lion who also happens to be the heir to a royal bloodline. This chance encounter ignites an epic journey for Mufasa and his extraordinary companions, all misfits searching for a place in the world. Their bonds will be tested as they face formidable foes and strive for their destiny.

Beyond the star-studded D23 presentation, the film boasts an even more extensive cast. John Kani, Tiffany Boone, Kagiso Lediga, Preston Nyman, Mads Mikkelsen, Thandiwe Newton, Lennie James, Keith David, Donald Glover, Blue Ivy Carter, Folake Olowofoyeku, Joanna Jones, Thuso Mbedu, Sheila Atim, Abdul Salis, Dominique Jennings, and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter all lend their voices to bring this captivating tale to life.

The film’s production team is equally impressive. Adele Romanski and Mark Ceryak serve as producers, while Peter Tobyansen takes on the role of executive producer. By combining live-action techniques with cutting-edge CGI, they’ve crafted a visually stunning experience unlike anything seen before.

Mufasa: The Lion King roars into theaters on December 20th, 2024. Indian audiences can celebrate the film’s release on the same date, with the movie available in English, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu.

ALSO READ: Mufasa: The Lion King Trailer: Aaron Pierre’s Mufasa and Kelvin Harrison Jr’s Scar go from brothers to enemies in new glimpse, watch

Tags : Aaron Pierre, Abdul Salis, AbRam Khan, Barry Jenkins, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Blue Ivy Carter, Disney, Dominique Jennings, Donald Glover, Folake Olowofoyeku, Hollywood, International, Joanna Jones, John Kani, Kagiso Lediga, Keith David, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Lennie James, Mads Mikkelsen, Musafa The Lion King, News, Preston Nyman, Shah Rukh Khan, Sheila Atim, SRK, Thandiwe Newton, Thuso Mbedu, Tiffany Boone, Trailer

BOLLYWOOD NEWS – LIVE UPDATES

Catch us for latest Bollywood News, New Bollywood Movies update, Box office collection, New Movies Release , Bollywood News Hindi, Entertainment News, Bollywood Live News Today & Upcoming Movies 2024 and stay updated with latest hindi movies only on Bollywood Hungama.

Source link

#Shah #Rukh #Khan #Aryan #Khan #reunite #Mufasa #Simba #AbRam #Khan #debut #young #Mufasa #Mufasa #Lion #King #Hindi #trailer #watch #Bollywood #News #Bollywood #Hungama

100 years of Disney: The businessman behind the magic factory

Post By World , , , ,

The Walt Disney Company is celebrating its 100th anniversary. Although Walt Disney was originally a cartoonist, it’s his business vision that defined his lasting – and often magical – legacy.

ADVERTISEMENT

Disney movies have been an iconic mainstay in popular culture for the past century, with millions – if not billions – of people having seen at least one of the company’s world-famous animated films.

The adventure began in Hollywood on 16 October 1923, when Walt Disney signed a contract for a series of silent half-live, half-animated shorts: Alice’s Wonderland. The date marks the beginning of Walt Disney’s success –and of his eponymous company.

Animator and entrepreneur

Walter Elias Disney, born in Chicago in 1901, developed a taste for drawing in his childhood.

Originally called the Disney Brothers Studio, then the Walt Disney Studio, Walt and his brother Roy Disney worked tirelessly to build the company we still know and love 100 years later.

Another central figure in Walt Disney’s early career was cartoonist and animator Ub Iwerks. His most iconic work is none other than Mickey Mouse. 

Disney’s most famous mascot was ironically not drawn by Walt Disney himself, although he’s the one behind the concept, and lent him his voice.

Mickey Mouse also showed Walt Disney how there was a great deal of money to be made around a flagship character. He sold licences for commercials and launched the production of merchandising.

Although drawing and animation are how he entered the business, Walt soon understood that his talent lay elsewhere.

“He eventually realised his greatest skill was not being the animator himself, but in pulling together a crew that could help him realise his stories and visions,” explains Louis Louise Krasniewicz, an anthropology professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Walt Disney: A Biography.

In the 1920s and 1930s, a crew of nine core animators emerged – the Nine Old Men, as Disney himself would call them.

Walt surrounded himself with highly skilled animators, demanding the best from them and all of his employees.

‘That’ll do’

“I don’t want to say he was bad to work for, but he demanded excellence,” said Aaron H Goldberg, author of several books on the Disney enterprise.

According to Goldberg, Disney was known for putting people in challenging positions and pushing them out of their comfort zone to bring the best out of them – like tasking animators with writing a song for a film when they had never previously done it.

“He was very intense,” said Goldberg, “and he was not very forthcoming with credit. If you did a great job, you weren’t necessarily going to hear ‘you did a great job’. But the phrase that he used to love was, ‘that’ll do’.”

Walt Disney prided himself on his staff coming together as one big family, with himself as the father figure.

He considered that only the core of outstanding workers, like the Nine Old Men, should get privileges and high salaries, while the rest had to prove they were worthy of more than the bare minimum.

He didn’t see the 1941 strike coming. Why, after all, would such a big and united family be unhappy?

But the artists working at the studio felt otherwise, in part because they had yet to get their share of the massive revenues generated by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated film produced by the studio in 1937.

ADVERTISEMENT

The strikers demanded better benefits and higher salaries, as they were earning below the national average.

Refusing to admit that his management style was the problem, Walt Disney added fuel to the fire during a speech he made while meeting with the strikers:

“I have always felt, and will always feel that the men that contribute the most to the organisation should enjoy some privileges,” he said. “My first recommendation to a lot of you is this: put your own house in order, you can’t accomplish a damn thing by sitting around and waiting to be told everything.”

The eccentric idea of Disneyland

After the strike was resolved by the creation of a union, the studio went back to its usual business. However, the Second World War forced Disney into producing propaganda films.

Even on US soil, which was almost entirely spared by combat, people deserted theatres. Although today considered Disney classics, movies such as Dumbo (1941) or Bambi (1942) were a commercial failure at the time of their release.

ADVERTISEMENT

Success came back after the war, while at the same time a somewhat extravagant idea emerged in Walt Disney’s unconventional mind: a theme park.

Although commonplace across the world nowadays, amusement parks were not widespread back in the 1940s.

Walt Disney imagined a place where children and adults could meet their favourite Disney characters, while enjoying a whole day of fun activities in a place where everything reminded them of their childhood.

Beyond the decor replicating his studio’s biggest hits, Walt Disney’s ambition was to recreate the place he most cherished: Marceline, a small Missouri town where he spent five years as a child.

The memories he created from that time, filled with farm animals and typical daily activities of an early 20th century mid-western American town, inspired his parks’ Main Street.

ADVERTISEMENT

Over the years, rumours have claimed that Walt Disney’s unconventional idea was rejected by over 300 investors – but that he persevered and pushed for his $17 million family-friendly dream theme park to be born.

The first Disneyland Park opened in 1955 in California. Back then, a ticket cost $1 (roughly $11 or €10 today) for adults and $0.50 for children, but that only entailed the park’s entrance. Each of the 35 rides cost an additional $0.25 for adults, $0.10 for kids.

It was an immediate success, with the one million visitors threshold reached not even two months after the park’s opening.

The one and a half hour opening ceremony was broadcast live on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in the United States, which at the time was the longest live programme to ever have aired.

Four decades later, The Walt Disney Company would acquire ABC, adding it to the impressive list of entities owned.

ADVERTISEMENT

From a family-owned animated films studio to a massive international conglomerate

Walt Disney died from lung cancer in 1966, meaning The Walt Disney Company has spent more years without than with him during its 100 years of existence.

His brother Roy Disney, who had been Walt’s business partner since the early hours of the company, took over. Like his brother, Roy was a businessman – but he didn’t share Walt’s creative mind.

Roy Disney continued his late brother’s work, including plans to open the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. However, Walt’s absence was soon felt in the creative department.

Roy Disney took on a different approach, wishing to increase the production of live-action movies, such as The Million Dollar Duck or Scandalous John, whose legacy speaks for itself.

Roy Disney died in 1971, just two months after the opening of Florida’s Disney World. Since then, The Walt Disney Company has never again been led by a member of the Disney family.

ADVERTISEMENT

The entertainment giant it has since grown into was worth $203.63 billion in 2022 (€191.6 million). Disney theme parks have opened in four additional locations: Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

The Walt Disney Company has bought several well-known studios, meaning a diverse set of previously separate iconic series and household names now fall under the Disney banner.

It purchased Lucasfilm, known for the Star Wars saga; Marvel Studios, renowned for its superhero films; and Twentieth Century Home Entertainment (formerly Twentieth Century Fox), the home of the US’s most famous family: The Simpsons.

It also acquired many other companies from the news and entertainment industry, such as the American sports cable channel ESPN and National Geographic.

The company owns cruise lines, real estate companies, holiday resorts and many more. In short, The Walt Disney Company has grown into a gigantic international conglomerate, a far-cry from the tight-knit firm that the father of Mickey, Donald and Goofy first envisaged a century ago.

ADVERTISEMENT

What would he think of it if he could see it today?

“When you look back at those years before his death in 1966, it was very much a family company, a family business. Nowadays, it’s so big and it’s so vast. But I think overall, he would probably be happy,” said Aaron H Goldberg.

According to Louise Krasniewicz, while Disney may have exploded in size compared to when Walt was at the reins, places such as the Disneyland parks still carry that family-oriented spirit from the early years of the company. And it’s not all:

“The main thing that Walt introduced to media productions was the idea of marketing-related merchandise,” she said. “So I think he would be very pleased about that aspect of the company today.”

Source link

#years #Disney #businessman #magic #factory

Cool Runnings turns 30: Why people gravitated towards a film about a Jamaican bobsled team

Post By World , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s been 30 years since the feel-good movie Cool Runnings was released based on the true story of the Jamaican bobsled team at the 1988 Winter Olympics.

If you’re yet to see the 1993 film, spoiler alert, the team loses.

But to former Miss Jamaica and former cultural ambassador for Jamaica Johnnel Smith, that takes nothing away from the impact the movie continues to have.

Ms Smith is a PhD candidate and a lecturer in tourism and business at Griffith University.

She’s seen Cool Runnings about half a dozen times.

“When I think of Cool Runnings, I think of real good Jamaican vibes,” Ms Smith said.

“The movie documented a significant aspect of our history that communicated the resilience of the Jamaican people, the can-do attitude of the Jamaican people.

“It showed that we literally had a country that was never exposed to winter, or cold, because Jamaica is a Caribbean country, very tropical, very warm. And so, there’s no snow in Jamaica and we were able to compete internationally in an Olympic sport that required us to go bobsledding down a snowy mountain.

“It spoke to what we are as a country, but more so the Jamaican spirit. It speaks to our resilience, it speaks to our creativity, it speaks to our ingenuity and our innovativeness, and how we can make something out of nothing.”

Johnnel Smith has watched Cool Runnings many times and would love to see a sequel to the film.(Supplied)

Ms Smith has lived in Australia for three years, and says whenever she meets someone new, she already knows what’s likely to come next.

“Whenever I introduce myself as a Jamaican, [there are] three things people bring up.

“They bring up Bob Marley, Usain Bolt and the Cool Runnings movie.

“That’s almost signature.”

A black woman dressed in Jamaican colours wearing a sash with Miss Jamaica written on it

Johnnel Smith was the 2010 Miss Jamaica festival queen and cultural ambassador for Jamaica in 2005 and 2010.(Supplied)

Ms Smith worked in tourism marketing when she was in Jamaica and said Cool Runnings helped to set Jamaica apart. And Hollywood has continued to come knocking. 

“There’s been a lot of movies that focused on other cultural outputs that we have lended to the world on an international stage,” Ms Smith said.

“So, we do get a lot of interest from film producers all over the world to film in Jamaica.

“So, that’s something else I did as a part of my job in Jamaica. So, for instance, the recent James Bond movie No Time to Die that came out in 2021, a portion of it was actually filmed in Jamaica and I had to work to organise that.

“So, the James Bond crew came and they filmed in Port Antonio in Jamaica. 

“Also, the movie Cocktail starring Tom Cruise was filmed in Jamaica.

“How Stella Got Her Groove Back. There have been tonnes of movies with a lot of Hollywood heavyweights and superstars.

“I just think this one because of the storyline and how uncanny it was, you know, Jamaicans competing in a winter Olympic sport, that was just so ironical and it was really funny, we’ve become synonymous as a people with that movie.”

Thirty years on, she’d love for filmmakers to revisit the narrative.

“I’d love to see Cool Runnings, part two,” Ms Smith said.

“I’d really love to see a sequel to the movie Cool Runnings that features a more modern Jamaica.”

Why Cool Runnings captured the imagination of viewers

There’s a reason Cool Runnings did so well at the box office.

It made $243.4 million dollars globally and only cost $23.6 million to make.

Dr Jo Coghlan with short brown hair standing against a wall wearing a blue shirt

Dr Coghlan says Cool Runnings is a story about mateship.(Supplied)

Jo Coghlan, who is an associate professor of sociology and the co-founder of the Popular Culture Research Network at the University of New England, puts it down to the fact that Cool Runnings is “a bit of an outlier”.

“There are a whole lot of other films in this genre where they start off as that kind of underdog, [undergoing] adversity, but they ultimately win,” Dr Coghlan said providing a list of movies that match this description including Jerry Maguire, I, Tonya, The Blind Side and Any Given Sunday.

She said Cool Runnings is a clear departure from that narrative and is instead a celebration of the human spirit.

“It becomes a story about, what in Australia we might call, mateship,” Dr Coghlan said.

“It’s very inspirational. It’s about overcoming adversity, the lack of technical knowledge, the backgrounds of the coaches, and that kind of backstory in the film.

“The story of the athlete that was injured and he couldn’t be a sprinter. So, he’s had individual adversity.

“Yet it’s done with this good humour and good grace.

“And it’s inspiring and it’s a lovely uplifting film that does remind us that sport’s not about winning.

“And I think for adults, but also for younger audiences that’s a really important message and I think that’s what people gravitated to.

“Add to that, it’s got a great soundtrack. It’s got all those great popular culture elements.”

Dr Coghlan does think, however, that there aren’t many films like it because sport is big business.

“Modern sport is all about performance. It’s all about winning,” she said.

“And winning is celebrated and winning is rewarded.”

A team of Samoan soccer players dressed in green being egged on by their coach in a drill

Next Goal Wins from writer/director Taika Waititi will hit Australian cinemas in January 2024.(Supplied: Disney)

Among the films that are about more than just winning are the 2016 biographical sports film Eddie the Eagle about Michael David Edwards, the first competitor in 1988 to represent Great Britain in Olympic ski jumping. He finished last in his events.

The upcoming Taika Waititi film Next Goal Wins follows the American Samoa soccer team, infamous for their brutal 31-0 FIFA loss in 2001.

That movie will hit Australian cinemas in January 2024.

And a movie is in the works on Eric Moussambani, nicknamed Eric the Eel by the media – the swimmer from Equatorial Guinea who was selected in a wildcard program to compete at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

Eric Moussambani standing against the backdrop of Sydney Harbour with the Opera House in view

Eric Moussambani, or Eric the Eel, had trouble completing the 100 metres but he refused to give up, turning himself into one of the favourites of the Games.(REUTERS/Pool)

Moussambani won his heat after his competitors recorded false starts and were disqualified, but he didn’t progress to the next round, because he had recorded the slowest time in Olympic history.

He did, however, finish the race setting a new personal best time and later becoming the national swim team coach in his home country, Equatorial Guinea.

As the world awaits these films, for those wanting a dose of nostalgia, Cool Runnings and Eddie the Eagle are available to stream on Disney+.

Source link

#Cool #Runnings #turns #people #gravitated #film #Jamaican #bobsled #team

Disney gambles on free cricket to turn the tables in streaming war

Post By Sports , , , , , , , ,

Walt Disney is attempting to revive the fortunes of its streaming business in India by offering free cricket on smartphones, betting that the strategy will boost advertising revenue and offset the impact of a subscriber exodus.

The India streaming operations, which were Disney’s biggest last year globally by users, posted a loss of $41.5 million on revenue of $390 million for the year to March 2022, its last disclosed results.

With subscriber exits accelerating and slashing the user base by a third between October last year and July, the entertainment giant’s financial performance in the country is only expected to come under more pressure.

Disney’s woes are a cautionary tale about the Indian market where expectations about a swelling middle-class are often frustrated by deeply cost-conscious consumers.

The company acquired Indian streaming service Hotstar when it paid $71 billion for some 21st Century Fox global assets in 2019. With the streaming rights of the Indian Premier League (IPL), the world’s richest cricket league, in the bag, Disney made cricket on Hotstar a paid service in 2020 and was confident about garnering up to 100 million users within years.

But the Reliance-owned Viacom18 snatched IPL rights away in a $2.9 billion bid last year, and then streamed games for free on JioCinema. Soon, Disney subscribers fled — out of 61 million users in October, roughly 21 million had left by July.

Disney internally recognises it misjudged Indians’ willingness to pay — people signed up for Hotstar when it had IPL, but didn’t stick around to buy more premium plans to watch other content, two Disney sources told Reuters.

“We were bullish on Indian subscribers’ propensity to pay. That’s not worked out,” said one of the sources. “Free cricket is the only bullet left.”

The company will stream live matches of the Asia Cup from August 30 as well as the World Cup in October-November that users of 600 million smartphones in the cricket-mad nation can watch without paying anything.

The new strategy comes as Disney is also exploring options of finding a joint venture partner or even a sale of its India business.

Hybrid model

Disney renewed its rights to show the ICC’s tournaments in India from 2024 to 2027 by paying around $3 billion. It retains digital streaming rights but last year licensed the TV broadcast rights to Indian’s Zee Entertainment for around $1.5 billion, a source said.

The company has assessed that going back to the free-cricket model on mobile phones and tablets is the strategic pivot needed to shore up revenues. It calls the move a new “hybrid model” to drive advertising revenues by raising smartphone viewers, while targeting new subscribers for the Hotstar TV app where cricket will remain under paid plans.

This strategy is about “how we build a model which will allow us to drive two revenue streams more meaningfully,” Sajith Sivanandan, head of Disney+ Hotstar, said in an interview, adding Disney was confident its user base will grow in the years ahead.

Making cricket free on mobile will help “450 million-plus customers to tune in” over 48 days of the 50-over World Cup that is being hosted by India, compared to 300 million in the last World Cup in 2019, stated a “Festival of Cricket 2023” Disney presentation created for advertisers and seen by Reuters.

The company is eyeing a new record of 50 million concurrent viewership during the World Cup, double the 2019 number, the document added. That will also be 56% higher than what Ambani’s JioCinema clocked during this year’s IPL finals in May.

Sivanandan said the company would target advertisers with budgets as low as 200,000 rupees ($2,421). Another new initiative would be interactive ads connecting watchers to a brand’s WhatsApp chat to enable purchases of the products.

Why are people unhappy with OTT streaming apps?

The Disney document showed a new deal struck with Coca-Cola for boosting subscriptions. QR codes on an estimated 400 million Coke bottles will offer a Hotstar trial, with Disney hoping 80,000 people will then take paid plans.

Low-average revenue

There is no guarantee, though, that Disney’s strategy pivot will succeed.

Daoud Jackson, a senior analyst specialising in streaming businesses at UK research firm Omdia, said free cricket was not a sure shot winner as companies pay billions of dollars to get streaming rights but commensurate advertising revenue takes many years to materialise.

While India’s middle class is massive, the broad user base in the world’s most populous country “narrows sharply” when it comes to paying users, VC firm Blume Ventures said in April.

In the United States, ad-free Disney+ streaming service subscription rates are set to rise by 27% to $13.99 per month. By contrast in India, Disney+ Hotstar service costs $3.62 a month.

Profitability

The average revenue per user (ARPU) is very low in India at just $0.59, compared to Disney+ U.S. service’s $7.31, according to Disney’s latest quarterly earnings report.

Disney’s global leadership has put pressure on India to speed up the “path to profitability” for Hotstar. CEO Bob Iger’s Chief of Staff, Nancy Lee, visited the country earlier this year and questioned the business leaders if streaming operations can be profitable before the end-2024 global target, sources said.

She was told advancing of the target will not be possible.

Still, research firm Media Partners Asia estimated last year India’s streaming market will be worth $7 billion by 2027, where Netflix and Amazon.com’s Prime Video will also be competing. But it is the rivalry with JioCinema that could be the most intense.

As Mukesh Ambani promoted IPL on his streaming apps around March, he focused on how people can watch matches on the go on smartphones, and do not need a TV. To counter that, Disney at the time rolled out ads saying cricket was best watched on TV – for which it still has IPL rights.

In new ad campaigns last week, Disney changed tack.

“Now watch all matches of the world’s biggest tournaments, anywhere, on your mobile, absolutely free,” it said.

Source link

#Disney #gambles #free #cricket #turn #tables #streaming #war

Review: Rob Marshall’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ Enriches the Original | FirstShowing.net

Post By Entertainment , , , ,

Review: Rob Marshall’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ Enriches the Original

by Manuel São Bento
May 31, 2023

Yet another Disney live-action remake, yet another short preamble about the original flick before diving into this new one. For me personally, The Little Mermaid from 1989 was not an animated movie that marked my childhood. The memorable songs, underwater musical sequences, and the iconic animal characters kept my recent rewatch enjoyable enough, but unfortunately, the superficial, abrupt narrative and the extremely underdeveloped character arcs leave a lot to be desired. These are some of the details that I hoped might be improved in the modern live-action remake, which contains an extra hour on its runtime… Claiming that a remake matches or surpasses the original will always be controversial. And if it’s related to movies that deeply impacted different generations, the nostalgia factor comes into play and blinds viewers who feel the almost uncontrollable need to protect “their film” against any other positive opinion about the new version.

It’s starting to feel repetitive to mention in my reviews that my opinion isn’t affected by anything external. 2023’s live-action The Little Mermaid is merely a new target of the well-known vocal minority incessant in canceling everything that evades the barriers of the so-called “norm”. The inability to understand what are the important characteristics of a character seems more purposeful than innocent since it’s obvious that Ariel’s skin color – played by Halle Bailey in the remake – doesn’t matter at all for her arc or any storyline or anything else. It’s not worth wasting too much time on incomprehensible human complexities…

Without forgetting my feelings about the 1989 flick, I release the inevitable “hot take“: yes, I consider this remake of The Little Mermaid superior to the original. Calm down…!! I’m not stating it is an unparalleled masterpiece in the history of cinema. And no, I’m not pushing a political agenda because of the lead actress – come on, please… This new Disney movie directed by Rob Marshall (of Chicago, Nine, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Into the Woods, Mary Poppins Returns) and written by David Magee also has its issues, but the narrative is incomparably richer, more complete, and more emotionally compelling than its predecessor, with all due respect to the authors of the first adaptation – who had to contend with the trend of short run-times at that time.

The Little Mermaid maintains the central themes of Hans Christian Andersen’s original tale: Ariel’s journey of self-discovery, the search for belonging and acceptance, the curiosity for adventure and new cultures… everything remains intact in this new adaptation. The big difference in this 2023 version is related to the time allocated to delve into all these topics, as well as the protagonists’ arcs. From details like explanations about Ariel and Eric’s family background to the lengthening of sequences from the original that needed more time to achieve the intended impact, the new script is unquestionably more fleshed out.

The greatest narrative growth can be found in the core relationship within The Little Mermaid story. The premise remains identical: Ariel and Eric must share a true love’s kiss for the mermaid to transform into a human being, having until the third day’s sunset to complete this mission. Not wanting to sound too crude with the 1989 flick, but at no point did I believe the characters fell in love with each other, much less for reasons so powerful as to be able to describe their kiss as one of true love.

In the original animated movie, both are more concerned with each other’s physical appearance, with Ariel even telling her father that she loves “handsome Eric” without the two having had any conversations yet. The first time Ariel sees Eric, she’s lost in the futile beauty of his face. In the remake, Ariel is fascinated by the prince’s words, creating an emotional connection with his personality, desires, ambitions, and way of seeing the world, in addition to only seeing his face right before the storm begins sinking the boat. Even after this first meeting, Ariel feels confused and keeps her interest in exploring the human world as her main motivation instead of being madly in love with a man she barely knows.

The second act of The Little Mermaid deepens their relationship even further, creating countless parallels between their pasts, the education they received, the future they want for themselves, their common passion for adventure, and their intense curiosity for different cultures. Both have a collection of antiques and when Eric takes Ariel on a tour of his kingdom, it’s a more extensive sequence, offering significant build-ups to impactful resolutions to much of what Ariel sings in the iconic song Part of Your World.

The Little Mermaid Review

The cast shares palpable chemistry, with Halle Bailey being the absolute standout. The actress proves to be tremendously charismatic, shifting the spotlight on herself whenever she’s on the big screen. In addition to her superb performance, her impressive voice echoes throughout the theater, grabbing the attention of all viewers as she sings outstanding songs from the score. Jonah Hauer-King is also excellent as Eric, even having his own song. The couple is incredibly charming together, but they aren’t the only ones that stand out. Daveed Diggs & Awkwafina manage to distinguish themselves from the original voices of Sebastian & Scuttle, respectively, by offering different accents and tones for both characters. I never expected them to reach the same levels as Samuel E. Wright (Sebastian) and Buddy Hackett (Scuttle), but the truth is, they’re absolutely hilarious. In the remake, there are more interactions between the two animals, resulting in more humor in addition to familiar scenes that are repeated. Jacob Tremblay also gives his best as Flounder.

Melissa McCarthy offers her body and soul to the evil octopus Ursula, respecting Pat Carroll’s previous work, but adding a more dramatic layer to the villain of The Little Mermaid. This Ursula sounds and looks more menacing than the 1989 flick, and retains some of her darker humor. Still, I expected more tweaks to her arc. There are some attempts to create a link between Ursula and King Triton, but here the screenplay holds the same superficiality that the original script had with Ariel and Eric. The past between the king and the sea witch wasn’t worthy of deeper development, despite Ursula’s motivations staying faithful to those of her predecessor.

Surprisingly, Javier Bardem is the only actor who disappoints. King Triton was never a highly expressive or emotional character, but in the original film, one could perceive the guilt and regret of a father trying to deal with a “rebellious” daughter. Bardem preserves the same expression throughout the entire runtime, focusing too much on the fact that he’s playing a king rather than a father.

On the technical side, The Little Mermaid has its qualities and flaws. The visuals are much better than the trailers let on, with some truly stunning moments, but that feeling of watching actors performing in front of a green screen never really goes away –  perhaps we just got used to the mind-blowing realism of Avatar: The Way of Water. The set and costume design deserve tons of praise, namely when the action moves into the human world.

The renowned songs are all beautifully performed and efficiently executed, with Kiss the Girl leaving my theater in tears due to so much laughter. It is, without a doubt, my favorite musical moment. Unfortunately, the new tunes don’t work at all. If Eric’s new song, called Wild Uncharted Waters, is still acceptable, others fall completely flat, especially a rap involving Sebastian and Scuttle that caught me off guard. It doesn’t fit the type of themes that the movie presents, sounding more like an outtake made for fun that somehow made the final cut than something seriously planned and perfected.

Composer Alan Menken’s score is everything a remake’s score should be. He takes his original work from more than 30 years ago and does the same as Magee’s screenplay: enriches what deserved to be enriched. Melodies become more complex and songs are stretched for longer sequences, contributing to a greater impact of the musical set pieces. If there’s an aspect impossible to criticize in this remake, it’s precisely this.

I have no more words to add to describe how surprisingly satisfying The Little Mermaid is. It’s not a perfect remake, far from it. There are better live-action adaptations from Disney, but it’s a major step in the right direction, a path the studio is rightfully taking by recalling these stories and offering new interpretations that – pay attention now – you may or may not enjoy! Our childhood isn’t going to be ruined by a new film. The original classics have never disappeared nor will they succumb to the void (let’s hope it stays that way). I’ll end this review with a personal example of how to deal with all these new remakes, if I may…

If you asked a few years ago what my favorite animated movies were, I wouldn’t mention Mulan. Although I always liked the original flick, I never saw it again as an adult, so somehow it fell into oblivion. If it wasn’t for the 2020 remake, I would never have revisited the original and realized how much I love it. I didn’t enjoy the remake much, despite praising Niki Caro’s courage in trying something risky and different. But I’m grateful every day for the fact that it was made because, without that remake, I wouldn’t have found myself rewatching the wonderful animated version again so soon. So, if you don’t like this new The Little Mermaid remake, that’s okay. Watch the 1989 movie again, share it with your family and, who knows, you might even enjoy it more after revisiting a story you love.

Final Thoughts

The Little Mermaid enriches virtually every narrative aspect compared to the original, deepening Ariel and Eric’s arcs while exploring the same core themes without losing any of its predecessor’s essence. The relationship between the protagonists is unquestionably more complex and emotionally compelling, while the secondary characters – namely Sebastian and Scuttle – remain genuinely hilarious. Halle Bailey is VERY impressive and the cast accompanies her excellently. However, it’s not without its problems: the new songs are, for the most part, forgettable; the visuals are better than anticipated, though the odd feeling of being surrounded by fake walls never quite disappears; and finally Ursula was left with unexplored potential. That said, it’s one of Disney’s best live-action remakes of recent times and deserves to be seen by every child in the world in need of some inspiration – as we all once were.

Manuel’s Rating: B+
Follow Manuel on Twitter – @msbreviews / Or Letterboxd – @msbreviews

Find more posts: Review



Source link

#Review #Rob #Marshalls #Mermaid #Enriches #Original #FirstShowingnet

Donald Trump says Ron DeSantis ‘is being absolutely destroyed by Disney’ in ‘political STUNT’

Post By Politics , , ,

2024 GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump is posting on Truth Social again, because he has many truths to be social about. Especially when it comes to Florida Governor and presumptive 2024 rival Ron DeSantis. Or, as he is more colloquially known, “Rob DeSanctimonious.” Or … “DeSanctus”? Here’s what Trump had to say about DeSantis/DeSanctimonious/DeSanctus earlier today:

Sad!

Not just the establishment, but the Swamp!

Wouldn’t Donald Trump’s invaluable time be better spent by following Ron DeSantis’ lead and taking a stand against Disney? Like, there’s no shame in following someone else’s lead when they’re doing the right thing. Unless, of course, you’re actually ashamed to follow someone else’s lead because then you might have to admit that you’ve made some mistakes and miscalculations.

Stable geniuses don’t need to lash out at Ron DeSantis for following through on the promises they made but didn’t actually have any intention on keeping. And they definitely don’t attack Ron DeSantis from the Left while claiming to be conservative AF.

Seems pretty reasonable. No wonder Trump hates it.

Who is Trump fighting for? Trump. What is he fighting for? Trump.

Donald Trump is sure as hell not fighting for Americans.

Yes, don’t forget that Donald Trump Jr. came out in defense of Bud Light in the past week.

Interesting? Definitely. Predictable?

Definitely.

That would certainly appear to be the takeaway here, wouldn’t it? If nothing else, Trump could put his donors’ money where his mouth is and take Mar-a-Lago out of Florida, just to show that he won’t stand for the way Ron DeSantis is running the state.

He won’t do that, of course. He’ll just stay right where he is and keep trying to pick fights with Ron DeSantis instead of actually fighting Democrats.

And Disney’s given Trump plenty of money. He’s not about to sit by and risk somebody turning off the spigot. Even if it means supporting the people who support teaching young kids about sexuality.

Pathetic.

Of course it’s a mistake. But don’t expect Trump to ever admit that. He’d sooner dig his own heels in so deeply that he buries himself alive than ever admit to making a mistake.

He’s acting like a child. A terrified one, at that.

He positively reeks of it.

Well, to be fair, you can’t lose something you never really had to begin with.

***

Related:

Donald Trump ramps up his war against Ron DeSantis by insinuating that DeSantis is a child predator

Donald Trump responds to Ron DeSantis’ indictment comments with some pretty insane insinuations

***

Do you enjoy Twitchy’s conservative reporting taking on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.  Join Twitchy VIP and use the promo code SAVEAMERICA to get 40% off your VIP membership!



Source link

#Donald #Trump #Ron #DeSantis #absolutely #destroyed #Disney #political #STUNT

Ron DeSantis Takes Brave Stand Against Drag Queen Christmas Boobies At The Miami Hyatt

Post By Politics , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What’s going on with Ron DeSantis and his ugly, misbegotten state?

Well, this week he’s been trying to show us how serious he is about running for president, by demonstrating for Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, and Vladimir Putin that he can be just as much of a Russian stooge as them.

And his administration is working on the home front, having a pissy little poopypants fascist temper tantrum at the Hyatt in Miami for having a drag show. It was called “A Drag Queen Christmas,” and it is affiliated with RuPaul’s outfit. It is of course the policy of the DeSantis administration to shake its tailfeathers and have an entire cow any time there’s a risk of a child finding out they don’t have to be repressed, insecure white Christian fascists when they grow up.

Insider reports that the Florida Department of Southern Baptist Karens Business and Professional Regulation filed a complaint against the Hyatt’s concert venue, which let minors in to the fun Christmas show as long as they were accompanied by adults. “A Drag Queen Christmas” is of course not a sexual strip show, and not a groomers exhibition. This means that if you feel sexed or groomed by it, then according to science you are a probably a full-grown conservative Republican Christian man who probably secretly wants to bone drag queens.

The state’s business department accused the Miami venue of several violations, including a prohibition of “lascivious exhibition” before people younger than 16, though it’s not clear to what extent this law is generally enforced.

Lascivious exhibition, oh myyyyyyyyy!

The department said performers were “wearing sexually suggestive clothing and prosthetic female genitalia,” as well as simulating masturbation.

We are going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the prudes and cultural shut-ins who work in the DeSantis administration might not be A+ students at identifying “prosthetic female genitalia” or “simulating masturbation.”

Except wait, they are literally talking about the fake boobies drag queens sometimes wear. We know how excitable the conservatives are when it comes to boobies.

The complaint, which is posted at Insider, is an absolute hoot. It just goes on and on and on about every naughty thing that offended these allegedly full-grown mature adults on the liquor licensing board.

It says the show featured “performers forcibly penetrating or rubbing their exposed prosthetic female breasts against the faces or oral cavities of audience members.” Hate it when drag queens forcibly penetrate your oral cavities with their fake boobies.

It says they “intentionally” showed their fake boobies and fake other genitals and real buttockses to the audience. Also? “Graphic depictions of childbirth and/or abortion.” Sure thing, definitely part of drag shows.

It says there were videos of “exposed female breasts with less than a fully opaque covering.”

It says the drag queens even desecrated sacred children’s Christmas songs. During “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth,” a drag queen suggested Santa put his milk and cookies “all between my gap!” And during “Screwdolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” they said the reindeer were called “Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Vomit and Stupid and Dildo and Dicks-in!”

And Screwdolph had NIPPLES.

Did you want the Church Lady regulating your entertainment choices? Well you got it, Florida.

They’re citing a whole passel of laws that prohibit things like “lewd and lascivious exhibition” to minors under 16, claiming the drag queens were exposing their genitals. Again, they are interpreting fake boobies and butts as “genitalia.” And because they’re humorless, joyless fucking dorks, they’re interpreting the silliness of drag as pornography.

We’d also note that for a bunch of lying bastards who are always swearing up and down that their attacks on LGBTQ+ people are merely to protect “parental rights,” they’re sure stepping on the authority of any cool parents who decided their kids are mature enough to laugh at the funny Christmas drag show.

Insider reports the decision isn’t final, and that the Hyatt has 21 days to request a hearing. Here is the poopypants pissy-ass statement from DeSantis’s office:

“Sexually explicit content is not appropriate to display to children and doing so violates Florida law,” Bryan Griffin, DeSantis’ press secretary, told Insider. “Governor DeSantis stands up for the innocence of children in the classroom and throughout Florida.

Again, for all normal people reading this, these homeschool dropouts are talking about a drag queen Christmas show.

Equality Florida had the right questions:

“How far will [DeSantis] take this anti-LGBTQ crusade in his desperate attempt to outrace his inevitable presidential primary opponents? Will he raid movie theaters because parents take their teenagers to see R-rated movies? Will he punish electronics stores because parents buy their children certain video games? How many businesses will DeSantis target, how many families will he force to co-parent with the government in his quest to manufacture right wing hysteria that he can monetize and weaponize?” asked Brandon Wolf, a spokesman for the group.

This is manufactured outrage. These never-nude ghouls are pretending drag is some new phenomenon they’re exposing, when in fact it’s existed forever. Somebody from a rightwing publication went to the show, made a stink about it on Twitter, and now DeSantis is shaking his peener at the Hyatt, and shaking his peener at other venues around the state, just like he’s been shaking his peener at Mickey Mouse so graphically that we really think Mickey should call the cops.

Barring that, Disney and Hyatt and all other companies could just leave the state and take their tax revenue with them and leave DeSantis and his stable of white supremacist retirees to fall into the ocean by themselves whenever it decides to swallow them up.

Que sera.

[Insider]

Follow Evan Hurst on Twitter right here!

And once that doesn’t exist, I’m also giving things a go at the Mastodon (@[email protected]) and at Post!

Have you heard that Wonkette DOES NOT EXIST without your donations? Please hear it now, and if you have ever enjoyed a Wonkette article, throw us some bucks, or better yet, SUBSCRIBE!

Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons.



Source link

#Ron #DeSantis #Takes #Brave #Stand #Drag #Queen #Christmas #Boobies #Miami #Hyatt

HBO Content to Move From Disney+ Hotstar From March 31: Details

Post By Science And Technology , , , , , , , ,

HBO content such as Game of Thrones, The Last of Us, and Euphoria will be leaving Disney+ Hotstar by the end of March 2023. Replying to a tweet, Hotstar’s support team confirmed that starting March 31, HBO shows and movies will not be available to watch on the streaming platform, which has been the key destination for Indians to access the WarnerMedia content after the company discontinued HBO cable TV channels in the country in 2020. Of course, all Disney material, which includes Marvel and Star Wars content, will remain on the platform.

“Starting 31st March, HBO content will be unavailable on Disney+ Hotstar. You can continue enjoying Disney+ Hotstar’s vast library of content spanning over 100,000 hours of TV Shows and Movies in 10 languages and coverage of major global sporting events,” the tweet reads. A report from last month suggested that the shake-up is in line with some restructuring and cost-cutting plans returning Disney CEO Bob Iger announced, which included the layoffs of 7,000 workers. The original licensing deal between the two parties was signed back in late 2015 — when the platform was simply called ‘Hotstar’ — which brought over HBO content to the streaming service. At the time, Game of Thrones was a huge draw, which began streaming on Hotstar in India immediately after it finished airing in the US.

The Indian Premier League (IPL) was another major source of traffic for Disney+ Hotstar, but took a big hit when Viacom18 bagged the digital streaming rights for it — for the next five years. Disney Star still holds the TV broadcast rights for it, though.

Additionally, Hotstar also did not renew the streaming rights for Formula 1 in 2023, with that content moving over to F1 TV Pro. That said, other sports content such as the Premier League, the Indian Super League, and select international cricket matches are still available to stream.

There were signs of some internal shake-up happening, long before the initial report. Normally, it is understood that in India, all HBO shows would appear on Disney+ Hotstar. However, when The Last of Us was gearing up for its premiere on January 15 around the world, the company never put up any banners or advertisements for the same, while the PR and support teams were still unsure of whether the series will be coming to India, after all. On January 16, however, the pilot just dropped with no prior announcement, to the surprise of fans, and has been strictly following a weekly schedule — save for episode 5, which was brought forward by two days to avoid clashing with the Super Bowl LVII event.

With Succession’s fourth and final season poised to drop on Disney+ Hotstar on March 26, it will be interesting to see how the company handles it. They could either release episode 1 and then shut down all HBO content, or avoid premiering the pilot altogether. Nevertheless, if you still haven’t caught up on the current fan-favourite The Last of Us series, The White Lotus, or any other HBO show, now would be a good time, since as of now, there is no solid confirmation for where the HBO content will end up. Industry analysts suggest Amazon Prime Video is a good candidate, where it could be packaged along with its usual content or provided as a separate subscription-based paid channel — akin to AMC+.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

  • Release Date 27 February 2013
  • Genre Action, Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
  • Cast

    Sean Bean, Mark Addy, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Michelle Fairley, Lena Headey, Emilia Clarke, Iain Glen, Harry Lloyd, Kit Harington, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, Richard Madden, Alfie Allen, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Jack Gleeson, Rory McCann, Peter Dinklage, Aidan Gillen

  • Director

    Tim Van Patten, Brian Kirk, Daniel Minahan, Alan Taylor

  • Producer

    Mark Huffam, Joanna Burn, Frank Doelger, Chris Newman, Greg Spence, Lisa McAtackney, Bryan Cogman, Duncan Muggoch

The Last of Us Season 1

  • Release Date 16 January 2023
  • Genre Action, Drama, Thriller
  • Cast

    Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, Anna Torv, Nick Offerman, Gabriel Luna, Merle Dandridge, Nico Parker, Murray Bartlett, Storm Reid, Jeffrey Pierce, Lamar Johnson, Keivonn Woodard, Graham Greene, Elaine Miles, Melanie Lynskey

  • Director

    Kantemir Balagov

  • Producer

    Craig Mazin, Neil Druckmann, Carolyn Strauss, Rose Lam, Evan Wells, Asad Qizilbash, Carter Swan

Euphoria Season 1

  • Release Date 17 June 2019
  • Genre Drama
  • Cast

    Zendaya, Hunter Schafer, Hunter Schafer

  • Director

    Augustine Frizzell, Sam Levinson, Jennifer Morrison, Pippa Bianco

  • Producer

    Sam Levinson, Kevin Turen, Ravi Nandan, Drake, Adel Future Nur, Ron Leshem, Daphna Levin, nowrap, Hadas Mozes Lichtenstein, Gary Lennon, Mirit Toovi, Tmira Yardeni, Yoram Mokadi, Jim Kleverweis, Zendaya, Tyler Romary, Philipp A. Barnett, Jamie Feldman, Kenneth Yu

Succession Season 4

  • Genre Comedy, Drama
  • Cast

    Nicholas Braun, Brian Cox, Kieran Culkin, Peter Friedman, Matthew Macfadyen, Alan Ruck, Sarah Snook, Jeremy Strong, J. Smith-Cameron, Dagmara Dominczyk, Justine Lupe, David Rasche, Scott Nicholson, Hiam Abbass, Fisher Stevens, Arian Moayed, Juliana Canfield

  • Director

    Mark Mylod, Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini, Becky Martin

The White Lotus Season 1

  • Release Date 12 July 2021
  • Genre Comedy, Drama, Mystery
  • Cast

    Murray Bartlett, Connie Britton, Jennifer Coolidge, Alexandra Daddario, Fred Hechinger, Jake Lacy, Brittany O’Grady, Natasha Rothwell, Sydney Sweeney, Steve Zahn, Molly Shannon

  • Director

    Mike White

  • Producer

    Nick Hall, David Bernad, Mike White

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on Twitter, Facebook, and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel.


Tesla to Build ‘Mostly Autonomous’ Next-Generation Small Car, Elon Musk Says

Featured video of the day

MWC 2023: Products From Xiaomi That Stood Out!



Source link

#HBO #Content #Move #Disney #Hotstar #March #Details

Corporate America girds for a challenging 2023 proxy season

Post By Business , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Proxy season 2023 is just around the corner. And it may be a tough one for public companies.

The Conference Board’s report on the upcoming proxy season forecasts several factors that will make it tumultuous. “Big ‘A’ shareholder activism is likely to rise, due in part to the current economic environment and the implementation of the SEC’s universal proxy rule,” according to the report. Some other predicted challenges include: the overall volume of shareholder proposals will likely continue to rise, an increase in “anti-ESG proposals,” and asset managers have adopted policies that will lead to more votes against directors on “governance practices and problematic compensation packages.”

An analysis by Broadridge shows that in the 2022 proxy season, there was a decline in investor support for directors—618 directors failed to attain majority support (104 more than in 2021). And there were more shareholder proposals than at any time over the past five years.

“Corporate America has to manage investor expectations more rigorously and frequently than say 20-25 years ago,” Sandeep Dahiya, associate professor of finance at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, recently told me. “We have hedge funds, activist shareholders, and a very diverse investor base.” Frequently, CFOs are taking the lead in terms of “crafting the strategy and communicating it,” Dahiya said. 

When it comes to activist shareholders, The Walt Disney Company has already been put on the front lines. In November, former CEO Robert Iger returned to the helm, ending former CEO Bob Chapek’s tumultuous tenure. Iger was tasked with turning around the company. 

In January, Nelson Peltz, a billionaire, activist investor, CEO, and founding partner of private equity firm Trian Fund Management, launched a proxy fight and announced that he would seek a board seat at Disney to try to initiate changes. But Peltz had a change of mind on Feb. 9  after Iger announced plans for a dramatic restructuring during the company’s earnings call on Feb. 8. Plans included 7,000 job cuts, $5.5 billion in cost savings, and the board would consider reinstating Disney’s dividend, which was suspended at the start of the pandemic.

My colleague Shawn Tully got the scoop on how this all played out and shares it in his latest piece, “The inside story of how Nelson Peltz got his way at Disney—and his detailed plan for a rebound.” Tully had an exclusive interview with Peltz about “his journey through the fog of proxy war.”

Tully writes: “Though Peltz hates proxy conflicts, he says they’re necessary for one overall situation: when a company he’s targeted is struggling but refuses to acknowledge that it has big problems. ‘If we can’t agree on the problem, we have to go to war,’ he told me.”

He continues: “It’s the standoff that triggered the only three proxy campaigns in Trian’s history, the salvos at H.J. Heinz, DuPont, and Procter & Gamble. In all three cases, he says, the CEOs and boards thought their companies were doing great, and showed zero interest in Trian’s proposals, though their poor numbers belied the claims that all was fine.”

You can read Tully’s complete report here.

Regarding gauging your company’s vulnerability to activist investors, “If you’re a good CEO, and a good CFO, that’s really your job,” Shane Goodwin, associate dean of graduate programs at the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University, once told me. “If you’re thinking about all the governance-related issues for your board, how to run your business in a profitable way, and creating value, that’s your best inoculation to any activist or any bad conversation with your shareholders, in general.”

Sheryl Estrada
[email protected]

Big deal

Crunch Time Series for CFOs: It’s Time to Get Serious About Data, a report by Deloitte, explains why creating data strategy needs to be a higher priority for finance chiefs. Deloitte’s CFO Signals survey for Q4 2022 found the top priorities for CFOs this year are cost management (52%), performance (50%), and growth (38%). Just 10% of finance chiefs surveyed named data analytics/A.I./business intelligence as a priority. According to Deloitte’s Crunch Time report: “From the top down, your finance organization should have a North Star data strategy. Where do you want to go? How can you get there? What benefits can you realize—not just in cost savings, but in new capabilities to strategically collaborate with the business? A clear strategy is a necessary bedrock for defining roles and responsibilities, determining priority levels, and establishing accountability.”

Going deeper

Regarding proxy season, Willis Towers Watson (WTW) has released its annual review of 2022’s “Say on Pay” voting. The season was highlighted by the record number of failures within the Russell 3000 since the vote on compensation programs became mandatory in 2011, according to WTW’s report. Shareholder support was marginally lower than in previous years at 89% (matching the lowest level of support recorded in 2012).

Leaderboard

Steven J. McGarry, EVP and CFO at Sallie Mae (Nasdaq: SLM), formally SLM Corporation, has entered into a retention agreement with the company. McGarry will remain an employee of Sallie Mae and continue to serve as CFO through February 2024 when he plans to retire. During this time, he will assist with the selection of the next CFO and will facilitate the transition of the role to his successor. McGarry joined Sallie Mae in 1997 as a director of investments and has served in a variety of financial roles during his more than 25 years tenure at the company. He has served as CFO for nine years. The company is conducting an extensive search to identify McGarry’s successor.

Linda Murray was named CFO at Form Bio, a computational life sciences platform. As CFO of Form Bio, Murray will lead the establishment and scaling of the financial and operating infrastructure. Before joining Form Bio, Murray served as the VP of financial planning and analysis for Cambridge Mobile Telematics. Her previous roles include serving as head of financial planning and analysis at enterprise SaaS technology companies, including BitSight Technologies and Candescent Health. Murray started her career at Morgan Stanley.

Overheard

“No, we’re not going to use it to write our standards—I would just note that.”

—U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board Chair Richard Jones told trustees of the Financial Accounting Foundation when asked how investors ingest financial reporting information these days with the use of technology like A.I., including chatbots such as ChatGPT, Thomson Reuters reported. Jones also said, “But I think it is important and that’s part of our continuous outreach with investors in understanding their ability to process data, how they’re processing data, how do we get the most important data information in our investment capital allocation decisions.”

This is the web version of CFO Daily, a newsletter on the trends and individuals shaping corporate finance. Sign up to get CFO Daily delivered free to your inbox.

Source link

#Corporate #America #girds #challenging #proxy #season

Sunday Shows: Post-State Of The Union Rundown

Post By Politics , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

We’ve had a lot of fun since liveblogging President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. We’ve mocked the official unhinged Republican response,the public ritualistic humiliation of Rick Scott and Mike Lee, as well as the crazy lengths that Tucker Carlson has gone to save the GOP’s face.

The Republicans who appeared on the Sunday shows continued flailing and set themselves up for more mockery. Let’s watch!

Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t

On CNN’s “State Of The Union” with Jake Tapper, Chairman of the Intelligence Committee Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio was all to eager to prove us correct when we pointed out Republicans’ bad-faith criticism of the “Chinese Balloon Crisis” last week.

youtu.be

When Tapper asked about the two flying objects shot down this week over Canada and Alaska, Turner made it clear Republicans have no issue with political inconsistency.

TURNER: Yes, well, I certainly don’t know, as the administration is saying they don’t know. They do appear somewhat trigger-happy, although this is certainly preferable to the permissive environment that they showed when the Chinese spy balloon was coming over some of our most sensitive sites.

“Trigger-happy”?! After all their whining and posturing about shooting at the sky, they have the gall to now act like the Biden Administration is paranoid or “trigger-happy”? Turner, when asked about the discovery of further classified documents on a laptop and thumb drive belonging to a Trump aide, topped his hypocrisy with an extra helping of good ole’ whataboutism.

TURNER: […] They are not to be taken lightly. And we’re just amazed as people keep finding them stuffed in the strangest places like behind Biden’s Corvette. This is —this is clearly a failure of an understanding of how to handle the importance of these documents.

This lack of unseriousness and blatant partisanship is what we have to expect for the next two years.

We Aren’t Cutting Social Security, Just Taking It To A Nice Farm Upstate

Rep. Turner was followed on “State Of The Union” by Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, who wanted to make sure that Biden was wrong about Republicans’ intentions regarding Social Security.

youtu.be

ROUNDS: […] I think that’s misleading in terms of what he really intended to do. But, look, the bottom line is, is, Republicans want to see Social Security be successful and be improved. […]

Well, you know what, maybe Biden was wrong and Republicans’ intentions are noble, regardless of Rick Scott or Mike Lee. So, what is the senator’s great plan to improve Social Security and make it more successful?

ROUNDS: […] I kind of look at security the way I would at the Department of Defense and our defense spending. We’re never going to not fund defense. But, at the same time, we — every single year, we look at how we can make it better. […]

So Republicans want to fund Social Security on a year-by-year basis?! I’m sure a lot of the seniors reliant on those benefits will be happy to know they’d be dependent on the Republican Party’s political games and whims every year.

I guess a cut by any other name would still make Scott’s shriveled heart flutter.

Influence Peddling Is Bad … Unless It’s Jared Kushner

Over on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos, Chairman of the Oversight Committee Rep. James Comer assured everyone that his committee will take the buying of influence very seriously.

COMER: Now I don’t disagree with the Democrats and their criticism of the previous administration. We have a problem here that needs a legislative solution. That’s why this Biden investigation is so important. There’s a legislative solution to this, and it can be bipartisan. The Democrats complained about Kushner’s foreign dealings. Republicans are certainly complaining about the entire Biden family’s foreign business dealings.

But when Stephanopoulos pushed Comer on why it seems that they’re taking no actions on Kushner or the Trumps (other than lip service), Comer made it clear that his committee is just weaponizing the government for partisanship. Again.

COMER: […] The difference between Jared Kushner and Hunter Biden is that Jared Kushner actually sat down [and] was interviewed. He was interviewed by investigators. So he’s already been investigated. […]

Thankfully, Stephanopoulos did a final fact-check before Comer slimed out the door.

STEPHANOPOULOS: […] I think we only learned of the $2 billion Saudi investment from the Washington Post this morning, at least the details of it.

Unless James Comer’s committee is full of Minority Report pre-crime investigators, it is pretty clear that the congressman’s full of shit.

The Real Meaning of “Woke”

We end with New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu on CBS’s “Face The Nation” with Margaret Brennan.

youtu.be

When asked about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s ongoing culture war against Disney, Sununu tried to describe his opposition to “woke cancel culture.” Brennan asked for a simple explanation of whatever Sununu meant by “woke,” and he quickly descended into gobbledygook.

SUNUNU: It’s the … it’s the divisiveness … divisiveness […] Where it is me versus you. Whereas if you are not adhering to my ideals, then I’m going to cancel you out. It is us versus them. It is this binary, where everything’s a war. […]

Oh! Guess by that logic we can start counting Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, January 6th insurrectionists, and Ron DeSantis as “woke.”

However, Sununu successfully demonstrated that “woke” and “cancel culture” are right-wing dog whistles that, like “critical race theory,” they can’t coherently describe. Despite his efforts at distancing himself from other Republicans, he also proved our theory that “good Republicans” are not a thing. It is the media’s attempt at “fetch.”

Have a week.

Subscribe to the Wonkette YouTube Channel for nifty video content!

Click the widget to keep your Wonkette ad-free and feisty.



Source link

#Sunday #Shows #PostState #Union #Rundown