The cast of The Lion King on Broadway, who has made headlines for their impromptu performances on an airplane and a New York subway, just released a new acoustic cover of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” via Disney.com’s Disney Playlist blog, which features music news, videos and playlists about the artists and stars fans love.
The video was created as a part of the blog’s Playlist Sessions series, which delivers intimate acoustic performances from leading artists. Additional Playlist Sessions performances from The Lion King on Broadway cast will be coming to Disney Playlist throughout the month.
This first video stars Nteliseng Nkhela who plays Rafiki, and Mduduzi Madela, Kyle Lamar Mitchell, S’bu Ngema, Rema Webb, Sindisiwe Nxumalo, Lindiwe Dlamini, and Derrick Davis from the ensemble.
The cast’s previous videos have gone viral and this amazing performance was shot on location at Broadway’s Supper Club 54 Below in New York.
On a recent conference call, Disney Interactive announced the new Disney Infinity: Toy Box Starter Pack (2.0 Edition), a special Disney-themed Starter Pack featuring Merida and Stitch and new Toy Box Games set in the worlds of “Lilo and Stitch” and “Brave,” for a suggested retail price of $59.99, pick up your copy at a local retailer or from our Online store (click on the Buy Now button below). Also announced was the Disney Originals figures including Donald Duck, Tinker Bell, Maleficent and Aladdin, as well as Hiro and Baymax from the upcoming Walt Disney Animation Studios film “Big Hero 6.” The standalone characters are priced at a suggested retail price of $13.99 and available now.
This unique Starter Pack allows fans to begin their Disney Infinity (2.0 Edition) experience using existing Disney figures and Power Discs, new Disney Originals characters, and the latest additions from the recently launched Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes game.
“It’s important for us to offer Disney fans an alternative entry point to the Disney Infinity sequel this holiday season, and the Disney Infinity: Toy Box Starter Pack is a great way for fans to experience the game and the new Toy Box 2.0,” said John Blackburn, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Disney Infinity.
The Disney Infinity: Toy Box Starter Pack (2.0 Edition) includes the following:
Disney Infinity (2.0 Edition) video game – (Note: The Disney Infinity: Toy Box Starter Pack and Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes Starter Pack both include the same video game disc)
Disney Infinity (2.0 Edition) base
Disney Originals Figures – Stitch and Merida
Disney Originals Toy Box Game Discs – “Stitch’s Tropical Rescue” and “Brave Forest Siege”
Web code card
Poster
The Disney Infinity: Toy Box Starter Pack game is a part of the Disney Infinity universe, which also includes the recently launched Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes. All Disney Infinity figures and Power Discs are compatible with the Disney Infinity: Toy Box Starter Pack (2.0 Edition), in addition to the Marvel Play Sets. The Disney Infinity: Toy Box Starter Pack (2.0 Edition) is rated E10+ by the ESRB. In addition to the actual Starter packs, Digital Downloads of Infinity 2.0 is now available for the PS4, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii U game systems and will launch with a $19.99 price tag. Later in November, Disney will release a new version for the iOS platform.
The Walt Disney Studios and Google Play has announced a partnership enabling millions of U.S. Android users to enjoy their Disney, Pixar, and Marvel digital movie collection across their devices through Disney Movies Anywhere.
Disney Movies Anywhere is an engaging and family-friendly digital destination that makes it simple for consumers to manage and enjoy their digital collection of Disney, Pixar and Marvel movies in one place, at home and on the go. The integration with Google Play means that it’s easier than ever for consumers to buy the films they love, and then enjoy them through the free Disney Movies Anywhere app and website, as well as everywhere Google Play Movies is available. Just download the Disney Movies Anywhere app and connect to your Google account.
“We are very excited to announce Google Play as our newest partner for Disney Movies Anywhere,” said Janice Marinelli, President, Disney Studio In-Home and Digital Distribution & Disney-ABC
Content Distribution. “We set out to create an exceptional Disney experience that made owning digital movies easy and fun, and with Google Play now on board following our successful launch in February, we are able to deliver unprecedented availability and ease for consumers across a broad range of mobile devices.”
“We want to make it easy for movie fans to enjoy all of their past and future digital purchases across all of their devices. Our partnership with Disney now gives Google Play users the ability to conveniently watch all of their Disney, Marvel and Pixar digital movies that have been purchased from any Disney Movies Anywhere participating retailer,” said Jonathan Zepp, head of Google Play Movies partnerships.
In Disney Movies Anywhere, consumers can explore Disney’s library of over 400 active digital titles from Disney, Pixar, and Marvel; preview upcoming offerings and enjoy hours of free new and exclusive short-form content; and discover curated content based on their individual preferences. In addition to browsing titles available for purchase, consumers can redeem Digital Copy codes found in Disney, Pixar, and Marvel Blu-rays and DVDs directly in Disney Movies Anywhere, as well as earn Disney Movie Rewards points for digital purchases.
For a limited time, Disney Movies Anywhere users who connect a new participating retailer account will receive a free digital copy of Disney’s hit animated film “Wreck-It Ralph.” The launch of Disney Movies Anywhere on Google Play also coincides with the release of “Maleficent,” one of the year’s biggest hits, and Disney’s animated “Planes: Fire & Rescue,” both out on digital and Blu-ray today.
With this new partnership with Google Play, it’s easier than ever for consumers to buy the films they love, and then enjoy them through the free Disney Movies Anywhere app and website, as well as everywhere Google Play Movies is available. Just download the Disney Movies Anywhere app and link to your Google account.
Get ready for high-flying adventure and fun! Disney’s Planes Fire and Rescue flies is now on Blu-Ray/DVD Combo. Check out all the details…
“Planes: Fire & Rescue” is a new comedy-adventure about second chances, featuring a dynamic crew of elite firefighting aircraft devoted to protecting historic Piston Peak National Park from raging wildfire. When world-famous air racer Dusty (voice of Dane Cook) learns that his engine is damaged and he may never race again, he must shift gears and is launched into the world of aerial firefighting. Dusty joins forces with veteran fire-and-rescue helicopter Blade Ranger (voice of Ed Harris) and his courageous team, including spirited air tanker Dipper (voice of Julie Bowen), heavy-lift helicopter Windlifter (voice of Wes Studi), ex-military transport Cabbie (voice of Captain Dale Dye) and a lively bunch of brave all-terrain vehicles known as The Smokejumpers. Together, the fearless team battles a massive wildfire and Dusty learns what it takes to become a true hero.
Once again, Disney has provided a ton of Bonus Features. These are my favorite part of reviewing movies. I love to see the deleted scenes, music videos and commentaries.
Exclusive Animated Short – “Vitaminamulch: Air Spectacular” is a funny Pixar short about vitaminamulch which is used to fertilize the crops.
Welcome to Piston Peak! highlights the aerial firefighting team of Piston Peak National Park.
“CHoPs” TV Promo is a cute TV Promo announcement.
Air Attack: Firefighters From The Sky is about real life firefighters and smoke jumpers as well as a behind the scenes look at making the film.
Spencer Lee Music Video “Still I Fly” is a great music video that you’re sure to enjoy.
Deleted Scenes with Filmmaker Introductions takes us on a journey of deleted scenes and the editing process that goes along in filmmaking.
Animated Shorts are cute shorts entitled “Dipper” and “Smokejumpers”.
Enjoy an Extended Clip of Disney’s “Planes: Fire & Rescue”:
The movie begins and we are introduced to Dusty. He’s a high-flying award-winning racer who discovers his gear box is chipped. He is sent to Piston Peak National Park and skyrockets into a career as an aerial firefighter. The Team must battle a huge wildfire and save the park visitors.
Have you ever watched Fantasia and thought of how magical it would be to conduct songs and be that Stokowski shadow that creates such fantastic music? Well now you can with Fantasia: Music Evolved. Take the stand as you compose your perfect rendition of classical and contemporary music from “Night on Bald Mountain” to “Locked out of Heaven” by Bruno Mars.
The main story involves yourself as you create beautiful songs when Yen Sid summons you as the next Sorcerer’s Apprentice to enter his created worlds to help them come to life. When you go to visit new and different worlds you meet Scout, another modern day apprentice, that you catch trying to create her own song. But she is stuck with a star called “noise” that will ruins these worlds that’s we have to animate. Scout will try to create a new song with this noise, but only you can help her achieve that goal!
In addition the the various songs you can play within the worlds. There are different interactive objects, paintings and many other things that you can help make these worlds breathe new life. In the songs you have 3 different ways you can play them with different styles of instruments and sounds. This will make you repeat songs to unlock different variations, but never loses the fun! Once songs are completed, the worlds will added something new to help you enjoy your time a little bit more!
Multiplayer uses two members of your party to orchestrate the ultimate song. With a simple shake of your counterparts hand you are thrown into a dueling battle of musical scrimmage. Even if you are competing against each other, I feel that I was more worried about my partner not being able to hit their marks instead of rooting against them to miss. I thought it was more of a teamwork multiplayer than a one-on-one and it has invented a new way to game with friends.
With your copy of the game you will receive three DLC songs which include “Let it Go” by Demi Lovato, “Counting Stars” by OneRepublic and “Lay Me Down” by Avicii. Once entering the song library you will not only be able to play new songs that you have unlocked inside the story, but downloadable remixes of songs that you have already played. With each song you download individually the estimated price for all downloadable songs will reach about almost 50 dollars in total. I have yet to purchase these songs, but definitely will in the near future. I do hope that Disney will introduce us to wonderful Disney film and park based songs in future DLC packs.
The kinect uses your body to follow the rhythm of different arrows to conduct songs with different instruments and sounds that will make the songs your own. The game has a little difficulty reading your movements, but plays beautifully regardless. Multiplayer makes into a little hard to read the arrows and if you live in a house with close quarters you will definitely be slapping each other!
It is a great game to play with friends and family. This will be the ultimate Christmas gift for Xbox owners and doesn’t disappoint in the slightest. The only problem you will have with the game..? Living a life outside of it!
One last comment, this review was done playing the XBox 360 Kinect Version, and a copy was provided by Disney Interactive for this purpose.
Click the Buy Now button below to get your own copy. Available Now for a suggested retail price of $59.99 for Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft, and for a suggested retail price of $49.99 for Kinect for Xbox 360 and is rated E10+ by the ESRB.
Fantasy Life is a game like no other I have played before; I have never had my hands on a game that has had a ton of choices without getting locked into that said choice. Fantasy Life is cute, charming and will keep you playing for many hours on end; I found myself playing much longer than anticipated just from how fun and addicting it was.
Gameplay:
What Fantasy Life excels at is that it offers you a ton of options. Even from the beginning of the game you are given the option of how you want your avatar to look like. You can choose from gender, body type, skin tone, appearance of eyes, nose, etc. Creating your avatar was a lot like the Mii creator; while there were plenty of options you could only customize it with the set options that were given. After choosing what your avatar looks like you get to choose a “Life” aka the world’s class system. What’s great about this is that you can easily and quickly change your life. You’re not tied down to one set Life per character; I found myself switching Lives very often. There are a total of 12 Lives you can choose from: paladin, mercenary, hunter, wizard, miner, woodcutter, angler, alchemist, carpenter, blacksmith, cook, and tailor. Each life offers its own set of skills and you complete challenges to increase your rank. With each rank the challenges get harder to complete; ie ingredients to cook with will be harder to find, creatures will be a lot tougher to beat, certain fish will be harder to catch, etc. Like it was previously said this is where Fantasy Life truly excels. You aren’t locked into one life class and you can freely switch whenever you want; even within the first hour of gameplay.
The main story of Fantasy Life is mediocre; I found myself trying to complete my Life missions or fulfilling the townsfolk wishes more so than completing the main story line. This was probably due to slow pacing of the game. In the beginning they overwhelm you with tutorials. It seems that every time you have free reign to do something you are bombarded with another set of tutorials. This gets very frustrating when you just want to get going with the game and explore. Some of the tutorials are very useful, but a good amount could have been left out.
The Verdict:
Once you get past all of the tutorials the game is well worth it. The numerous quests and freedom you are allowed will keep you entertained for hours on end. This is one endearing game; you’ll spend countless hours searching for ingredients, cooking up a delicious meal, concocting magical spells, fighting beasts and countless other mini games to get you to the rank of master. The story suffers from poor pacing, but everything else that is available numerously outweighs the game’s cons. This game is available exclusively for the Nintendo 3DS and it is currently priced at $39.99 and is very well worth it.
Universal Studios has unveiled the first trailer for Furious 7, the seventh film in the high octane series that started with Rob Cohen’s 2001 film, The Fast and the Furious. This time around, James Wan (The Conjuring, Insidious) takes over directing duties for four time series director Justin Lin, and the film looks like a blast. The film sees Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, and Lucas Black, with new blood to the series in Jason Statham, Kurt Russell, and Tony Jaa. The trailer packs everything we’ve come to expect from the series, but that’s not a bad thing. If you didn’t think it could get more ridiculous, you’d be wrong. Check out the trailer below:
If you had told me ten years ago I’d be anticipating the seventh film in this series, I would have laughed in your face, but here we are, and the series has gone from guilty pleasure, to one I can’t help but genuinely love for its characters, action, and fun that they’ve brought to the big screen. This will also mark the final film of Paul Walker, who tragically passed away last November, and it’ll be great to see his final film completed, and I’m grateful that Universal, and his Fast & Furious family, were up to the task.
The stunts look absolutely bananas, the cast looks like they’re having fun, and Wan seems to have brought a bit of a classic revenge edge to the proceedings. It just looks like a lot of fun, and I like that they don’t take themselves so seriously that it’s not fun anymore. It’s good to see some big budget escapism fun, and that’s something this series has been delivering on a lot over the last seven years. It’ll be very curious to see just where the film series will head from here, but I can’t wait to see where Furious 7 takes us on April 3, 2015.
Continuing the global exploits in the unstoppable franchise built on speed, Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Dwayne Johnson lead the returning cast of Furious 7. James Wan directs this chapter of the hugely successful series that also welcomes back favorites Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Elsa Pataky and Lucas Black. They are joined by international action stars new to the franchise including Jason Statham, Djimon Hounsou, Tony Jaa, Ronda Rousey, Nathalie Emmanuel and Kurt Russell. Neal H. Moritz, Vin Diesel and Michael Fottrell return to produce the film written by Chris Morgan.
Disney Cruise Line introduces two popular Caribbean destinations — Tortola, British Virgin Islands and Martinique — into the lineup of favorite tropical itineraries for early 2016. The return to the homeport of San Juan, Puerto Rico brings a new itinerary that includes Martinique.
From the warm Caribbean culture of Tortola, capital of the British Virgin Islands, to the exquisite French island of Martinique, these destinations provide Disney Cruise Line guests the chance to relax on pristine beaches, discover natural wonders and indulge in local shopping and cuisine.
Bookings open to the public on Oct. 30, 2014. More details on 2016 itineraries can be found on the Itineraries and Ports for 2016 page of disneycruise.com.
Port Canaveral to Eastern Caribbean, including Tortola
In 2016, Disney Cruise Line will sail from Port Canaveral, Fla. on a seven-night itinerary to the Eastern Caribbean, including a call at Tortola and Disney’s private island in the Bahamas, Castaway Cay.
Tortola is an idyllic escape for guests of all ages, from tranquil beaches and stunning scenery to exhilarating activities and authentic Caribbean fare. With a variety of experiences for the family to share together, Disney Cruise Line guests will create memories in Tortola while swimming with dolphins, exploring centuries-old ruins, sampling local spices on Main Street and reveling in the natural beauty of Sage Mountain National Park.
Ports: Port Canaveral; Tortola; St. Thomas; Castaway Cay
Departure dates: Disney Fantasy: Jan. 2, 16, 30; Feb. 13, 27; March 12, 26; April 9, 23; Disney Magic: April 3, 17
Rates start at $1,120 per person for seven-night Eastern Caribbean cruises for a category 11C standard inside stateroom, based on double occupancy. Taxes, fees and port expenses are not included.
San Juan to Southern Caribbean, including Martinique
Disney Cruise Line returns to San Juan, Puerto Rico in early 2016 as the Disney Wonder sails four seven-night cruises to the Southern Caribbean, including a stop in Martinique on a new itinerary for Disney.
Known as the “Flower of the Caribbean,” Martinique offers a unique island experience complete with breathtaking natural beauty and cosmopolitan culture of French and Creole influence. Nature-lovers will delight in lush rainforests, rushing waterfalls and volcanic landmarks, while guests looking for a more upscale experience will savor superb French cuisine and superlative shopping.
Ports: San Juan; Barbados; Grenada; Martinique; Antigua; St. Kitts
Departure dates: Jan. 10, 17, 24, 31
Rates start at $980 per person for seven-night cruises from San Juan for a category 11C standard inside stateroom, based on double occupancy. Taxes, fees and port expenses are not included.
Port Canaveral and Miami to the Bahamas and Caribbean
In 2016, Disney Cruise Line will sail from Port Canaveral and Miami to the Bahamas and Caribbean on a variety of itineraries. All of these cruises include a stop at Disney’s private island, Castaway Cay.
From Port Canaveral, rates start at $375 per person for three-night cruises, $500 per person for four-night cruises and $1,120 per person for seven-night cruises for a category 11C standard inside stateroom, based on double occupancy. Taxes, fees and port expenses are not included.
From Miami, rates start at $352 per person for four-night cruises and $440 per person for five-night cruises for a category 11C standard inside stateroom, based on double occupancy. Taxes, fees and port expenses are not included.
To learn more about Disney Cruise Line or to book a vacation, e-mail me at [email protected] for a free Quote or fill out the Vacation Quote form on this page!
JAKKS Pacific, Inc. during a special panel at San Diego Comic-Con unveiled an all-new dynamic lineup inspired by iconic franchises including Super Mario, The...
