Most princesses in the Disney kingdom are, well, princesses. They are concerned with things like dresses and jewelry and balls and finding Prince Charming. Merida, the main character in Pixar’s Brave, breaks the royal mold.

Mark Andrews, who co-directed Brave, calls Merida the anti-princess. Andrews told My San Antonio:

“She isn’t your typical princess. She’s your anti-princess.  She doesn’t wear nice clothes except in a couple of scenes when her strict mom, Queen Elinor, makes her do it for special functions. She’s an active and action-oriented person. She wants to get out in the outdoors of the Highlands, escaping from castle life and exploring the woods.”

Andrews isn’t the only one who thinks that Princess Merida sticks out like a sore thumb when lined up alongside with Snow White, Cinderella, Ariel, and Princess Jasmine.  Kelly Macdonald, who voices Princess Merida, found it very amusing that the red haired princesses will one day be a character at Disney World.

“I just thought, ‘My goodness! There’s eventually going to be a Merida doing her thing (at Disney World). The people that they cast to be the characters and wear the costumes at Disneyland have to do the accent, so somebody at Disneyland is going to be doing me. Some American girl will have to do my accent. It kind of blows my mind, really.”

Here’s the trailer for Pixar’s Brave.

Emma Thompson, Billy Connolly, Craig Ferguson, Kevin McKidd and Robbie Coltrane will also lend their voices to the new Pixar film.

Pixar’s Brave is scheduled to hit theaters on June 22, 2012.

Are you excited to see Pixar’s Brave? What’s your favorite Pixar movie?

Pixar’s ‘Brave’ Introduces a New Breed of Disney Princess [Trailer] is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Walt Disney announced that its animated feature film with Pixars “Cars 2” has already earned $189 million in the U.S. since its first showing on June 24, 2011, making it the top grosser among this year’s animated features.

Combined with international earnings, “Cars 2″ has now grossed $548 million to date, making it the 16th highest grossing animated film in global cinematic history. The film has also surpassed the worldwide box-office totals of other Disney/Pixar hits such as “Monsters, Inc.” and “WALL-E.”

“Cars 2″ is the 12th feature-length animated film from Pixar Animation Studios. Its first 11 have earned $6.5 billion at the global box office.

The reported earnings of “Cars 2″ is in line with the movie review by Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine when he said:

“This is the real fast and furious and it’s even better than before. The sequel is a tree-burning burst of action and fun with a beating heart under its hood. You can bet “Cars 2″ will rev your engines.”

The Hollywood Post Alliance nominated “Cars” in two categories: Outstanding Editing-Feature Film (Stephen Schaffer, A.C.E./Pixar Animation Studios) and Outstanding Sound-Feature Film (Tom Myers, Michael Semanick and Michael Silvers/Skywalker Sound).

John Lasseter directed “Cars 2,” a follow-up to his 2006 two-time Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe-winning “Cars.” “Cars 2″ is co-directed by Brad Lewis, producer of the Oscar-winning film “Ratatouille,” and produced by Denise Ream (associate producer, “Up”).

With three months left this year, will “Cars 2″ maintain this dominance?

“Cars 2″ Tops Domestic Box Office Among This Year’s Animated Films (So Far) is a post from: The Inquisitr

You know the golden rule of game-movie tie-ins by now: if it’s a game based on a movie, it’s probably crap. There are obvious exceptions, but that law generally holds fast.

In other words, my hopes weren’t high for this Toy Story 3: The Video Game trailer, and for the first eighteen seconds of this trailer, my expectations were met: this was another pretty but vapid 3D platformer.

But then we’re shown ‘Toy Box’ mode, which appears to be Pixar-does-LittleBigPlanet. Judging from this, players can create and customise their own levels using a range of props, characters, settings, and scenery from the Toy Story universe. There seems to be some pretty decent physics at work. This … might have potential.

The key, of course, lies with how customisable the user-created content actually is, and also whether Disney will allow players to upload their creations, which is what really made LittleBigPlanet something special.

I suspect Disney/Pixar will be cautious about this – after all, most of the user-generated LittleBigPlanet levels contain machines and scenery designed to look like willies, and schlongs are the last thing they want Toy Story to be associated with. If Disney and Pixar can work out some reasonable way to moderate uploaded content, this might be a genuinely worthwhile companion to the movie.

Or it could just be another shitty platformer with a half-baked build-a-level mode slung in. Could go either way, really. Here’s the trailer:

See also: First Toy Story 3 movie trailer

[Via YouTube]

[VIDEO] Toy Story 3: The Video Game looks, uh, quite good actually is a post from: The Inquisitr

One of the more heart warming stories that the Mac faithful, and business mags needing to fill out some space, like to trot out every once in awhile is how Steve Jobs only makes $1.00 per year running Apple. As well he hasn’t sold a single share of Apple stock that he owns even though his holdings are valued at around $1.1 billion.

So how does the man live?

Well it helps if you own 138 million shares of Disney stock that you got when selling Pixar to the entertainment giant. This makes him the single largest stockholder in the company at this point for which he receives a yearly dividend of over $48 million.

Disney has paid out dividends of $.35 per share each of the past 3 years. Owning 138 million shares results in over $48 million received each year in dividend income. Even Steve Jobs can survive on $48 million in stock dividends each year.

Source: Seeking Alpha

No wonder Jobs figures he can park where ever he likes – handicap zone or not – as well as figuring that having a license plate is for everyone else to worry about.

How Steve Jobs survives on a $1 a year (Hint: it helps to be making $48 million in dividends) is a post from: The Inquisitr

By way of introduction, Marvel is now owned by Disney.  Yes, as of yesterday, the decades-long king of children’s entertainment, the reinventor of fairy tales, and clearing house for all things Mouse has ownership of one of the leading comic entertainment enterprises that is not necessarily known for being child-friendly.

I find this a bit weird.

Marvel’s cornerstones over the last seven decades have been Spiderman, The X-Men, The Hulk, Captain America, and a handful of other big-name titles, most of which have either already seen the silver screen or are slated to in the coming years.  In fact, Marvel proved in 2000 that a comicbook-based movie could be not only highly successful but quality entertainment as well, arguably starting the the modern age of book-to-screen transfers that has produced gems like The Dark Knight along with utter abominations such as Punisher: War Zone.

But for Disney to purchase Marvel is a decision that makes me curious:  besides the obvious financial benefits of merging two of the most successful entertainment operations of all time, what motivations could the Head Mousekeeter have?  Disney’s productions, like Cinderella, The Lion King, and Bolt, are very different from the graphic and dark nature Marvel usually favors.

To be fair, a few of Disney’s arms produce slightly less G-rated material, such as Pixar’s Wall-E or ABC’s Lost, but even then the themes, or visuals, don’t approach the supreme violence of Wolverine, the adult lifestyle themes of Spiderman, or even the complex continuity of the Marvel Universe.  So it makes sense that Disney has announced no intentions, for the foreseeable future, of influencing the production staff of Marvel, or even of disrupting the movies-in-progress.

This is good news, so long as they keep their promises – a cheery, joke-telling, lighthearted Logan would be entirely more disturbing than his modern depressive, angry, violent self.  Perhaps Disney is truly interested in simply the financial benefits of owning the massively successful enterprise and will truly leave it to operate on its own, much as they have with Pixar.

Or maybe Disney is curious about turning Marvel’s creative talents inward to their own core cast of characters, in order to produce more adult-themed versions of popular titles.

Now that I can get behind.

Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction.  He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.

Marvel and Disney Together Is a Bit Weird is a post from: The Inquisitr

Colby Curtain, 10, was dying of vascular cancer and had one last wish- to see the new Pixar film Up.

But Colby was too sick to go to a theater. Initial plans to obtain a wheelchair for the girl fell through and her condition deteriorated. A family friend reached out and called the company to explain the family’s predicament. Pixar came through.

According to the OC Register, Colby’s mom Lisa spoke to her daughter about Pixar’s plans:

“Do you think you can hang on?” Colby’s mother said.

“I’m ready (to die), but I’m going to wait for the movie,” the girl replied.

On June 10th, the company flew a representative to Colby’s home with a DVD copy of the movie for a private viewing, as well as a bag of stuffed animals, an “adventure book” and a movie poster. Too ill to even see, Colby’s mom Lisa described most of the film to Colby as she listened.

Seven hours later, Colby died. Her mother described her gratitude for Pixar’s efforts on her daughter’s last day on Earth, and added:

“I just know that word ‘Up’ and all of the balloons and I swear to you, for me it meant that (Colby) was going to go up. Up to heaven.”

Pixar grants dying girl’s final wish is a post from: The Inquisitr

Pixar has released the first teaser trailer Toy Story 3.

Still 12 months away from being released, the Toy Story 3 trailer is a real teaser, in that it actually provides no information about the movie. Instead, we get reintroduced to the main characters from the previous two films.

Details of the story line are a little thin, with the only synopsis reading “Woody, Buzz, and the rest of their toy-box friends are dropped off at a day-care center after their owner, Andy, who is fond of his toys, departs for college.”

Toy Story 3 is due out June 18, 2010.

First Toy Story 3 Trailer Released is a post from: The Inquisitr

Look most recently served as vice president of software for Pixar and is credited with helping develop its world-famous filmmaking system. His resume also includes a stint at TiVo, where he was vice president of application software and user experience. He played a “key role in defining TiVo’s functionality and user experience,” his bio states. Prior to TiVo, he led the Silicon Graphics team that built the world’s first VRML-based 3D workstation. Not too shabby.

Linden Lab isn’t revealing any specifics yet about what sorts of changes could be coming. The Second Life company does say, however, it intends to make its virtual world “more accessible to more people by making it easier to use, more intuitive, and more joyful.”

This is Linden Lab’s second big name hire in recent months. The company snagged former AOL exec Frank Ambrose as its senior VP of global technology in August. Ambrose was hired to work on expanding the Second Life network.

Linden Lab is based in San Francisco.

Former Pixar Exec Joins Second Life Team is a post from: The Inquisitr