The Princess and the Frog

A somewhat odd news story to report on today. Both Blue Sky Disney and SlashFilm have confirmed that Disney has changed the title of their upcoming animated film Rapunzel to simply just Tangled instead. The film is an animated retelling of the classic Rapunzel fairy tale about a girl with incredibly long hair stuck in a very tall castle. Disney's version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale has been in development for a long time, originally using computer animation techniques to make it look painted, but I think that was only in the early version. So why get rid of a very recognizable title? For marketing purposes of course. Read on! Blue Sky Disney goes on to explain that, after the mediocre-to-good success of The Princess and the Frog ($101 million in Us box office), Disney is rethinking their marketing strategies for upcoming animated movies. They (meaning the execs and John »
- Alex Billington

Read the full article on firstshowing.net

Valentine's Day has knocked Avatar from the top of the UK box office. The ensemble romantic film, which features Jessica Alba, Julia Roberts and Ashton Kutcher, pulls in £3.7 million over the Valentine's weekend to emerge as the number one movie ahead of James Cameron's sci-fi epic. The Wolfman, The Princess And The Frog and Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief round out the top five, while Shah Rukh Khan's My Name Is Khan debuts at six, scoring the biggest ever UK opening for a Bollywood production. Elsewhere, Oscar-nominated A Single Man lands at number eight »
- By Simon Reynolds

Read the full article on digitalspy.co.uk

While the cutting-edge, youth-friendly innovations being cooked up at the Academy's OscarLabs are being kept under tight wraps, one major change has leaked to Deadline, and it's one that will rock Beyoncé's foundation garments: The Best Song performance has been eliminated from the festivities, to make room for the 10 Best Picture nominees; instead, the songs will play under clips of the films they're from. (Pictured, the members of Oscar-winning Three Six Mafia flash a grill of disappointment.) This decision comes in a year boasting a particularly uninspired crop, including "Loin de Paname" from the obscure Paris 36, three Randy Newman tunes from The Princess and the Frog, Marion Cotillard's Nine song called "Take it All" and "The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)" from photobombing outlaw, Ryan Bingham. »

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