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Tag: Kathleen Kennedy

  • ‘Star Wars’ propels Disney’s 2015 global box office to $5 billion

    ‘Star Wars’ propels Disney’s 2015 global box office to $5 billion

    MUMBAI: With final numbers now in, Star Wars: The Force Awakens rose above estimates to post an all-time industry-high $248 million in North America plus $281 million internationally for an all-time record global debut of $529 million since opening day-and-date 16 December. This excludes any grosses from China, where the film opens 9 January, as well as Greece and India, where it opens this week.

     

    Domestically, Disney now holds four of the top five debuts of all time. In addition to posting the biggest Thursday preview gross ($57 million) and the biggest Friday and single-day ever ($119.1 million), Star Wars: The Force Awakens set a new Sunday record of $60.5 million. Internationally, it was the biggest opening weekend ever in numerous territories including the U.K. (four-day), Australia, Russia, and Germany.

     

    Yesterday, Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn said of the historic debut, “Our sole focus has been creating a film that delivers that one-of-a-kind Star Wars experience, and director J.J. Abrams, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and the Lucasfilm team have outdone themselves. To all of the fans around the world who not only came out in Force to make this such an exciting and astronomical debut but who treated this film as their own and helped preserve the experience for their fellow fans by not spoiling it—thank you, we do.”

     

    Company Box Office Milestones Reached:

     

    The galactic debut of Star Wars: The Force Awakens has pushed The Walt Disney Studios to its highest year on record. Today, Disney will cross the $5 billion mark in global box office in a calendar year for the first time ever, surpassing the previous full-year record of $4.73 billion set in 2013. The studio has also reached new highs domestically with $1.851 billion and internationally with $3.134 billion through 20 December. The previous best for each was also set in 2013 with $1.719 billion domestic and $3.013 billion international.

     

    These 2015 milestones were reached with outstanding performances from films across Disney’s brands, including Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron ($459 million domestic; $946 million int’l; $1.4 billion global), Disney• Pixar’sInside Out ($356.4 million domestic; $499 million int’l; $855.4 million global), Disney’s Cinderella ($201.1 million domestic; $341.4 million int’l; $542.5 million global), Marvel’s Ant-Man ($180.1 million domestic; $339 million int’l; $519.1 million global), as well as Walt Disney Animation Studios’ 2014 release Big Hero 6 ($305 million globally during the 2015 calendar year).

  • ‘Star Wars’ movies available for digital download for first time ever

    ‘Star Wars’ movies available for digital download for first time ever

    MUMBAI: As anticipation builds for the December release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the first new film in the Star Wars Saga in a decade, The Walt Disney Studios, Lucasfilm Ltd., and 20th Century Fox are gearing up to release The Star Wars Digital Movie Collection.

     

    For the first time ever, all six epic films in the saga, from The Phantom Menace to Return of the Jedi, will be available on Digital HD globally from 10 April.

     

    “Since the debut of the first film nearly 40 years ago, Star Wars has become a worldwide phenomenon with legions of fans from every generation. It’s only fitting that audiences enjoy this legendary Saga and its many fascinating behind-the-scenes stories on a wide variety of platforms, and we’re very excited to finally bring all six films to Digital HD for the first time,” said The Walt Disney Studios president Alan Bergman.

     

    “We’re thrilled that fans will be able to enjoy the Star Wars Saga on their digital devices wherever they go. These films broke new ground in technology, design, sound, and visual effects, and we’ve created some very special bonus material which delves into the Saga’s rich history, including new and never-before-released conversations between legendary Star Wars artists – the masters who helped George bring his iconic universe to life,” added Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy.

     

    With Star Wars: Episodes I-VI available for purchase as a complete digital movie collection and individually, viewers will have the Rebel forces at their beck and call across their favorite devices anywhere – sunbathing at the beach, relaxing in their living room with friends, or waiting to board a flight to Endor (or elsewhere).

     

    Enhancing the movie collection are a host of never-before-seen special features including Star Wars: Discoveries from Inside and insightful Conversations between key contributors from across this celebrated film franchise, plus a curated collection of classic Star Wars extras from each film.

     

    The six movies in the Star Wars saga are: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

  • Spielberg working on script of Tintin sequel

    Spielberg working on script of Tintin sequel

    MUMBAI: With The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn doing very well all across the globe, filmmaker Steven Spielberg has already started working on the script for a sequel to the 3-D film.

    According to producer Kathleen Kennedy, she and Spielberg are busy with the new script and hope to have the film release by summer 2015 at the latest. “Oh yeah it is being moved forward, in fact Steven and I were talking about it this morning. We‘re working on a script right now, we‘ll see a script probably February or March.

    If we can do some camera capture this summer, which I think we could do, then we would be on track to have the movie either Christmas 2014 or summer 2015, and so that‘s what we‘re looking at right now,” Kennedy has reportedly said.