Hi there, ho there, MiceChateers! Did you have a good weekend? I spent time with family and wound down from E3.
Inside Out Makes History, and it’s Complicated
Last weekend, as I mentioned, Walt Disney Pictures treated us to an advance screening of Inside Out and the magnificent short LAVA. As millions of people can now attest, it’s a darn good movie, making a massive 91 million dollars on opening weekend. But it wasn’t the #1 movie – Jurassic World, the sequel to Jurassic Park, was. “It’s a cartoon,” people will say. “It’s a kids’ film,” people will say. “Hollywood is out of ideas!” Jack Black sang at the Oscars. It made history as the highest grossing number two movie opening weekend of all time, says Fab. Plus, LAVA is #1 on soundtracks for Amazon and heading that way on iTunes.
Don’t leave me hanging here folks. Did you see the film? What did you think?
Every single headline I came up with got rejected. Come up with a better one in the comments below…that won’t get us in trouble!
Speaking of number two, does the idea of putting something in your face that looks like animal dung make you want to scat? (sorry) Zuri’s Sweets Shop just opened at Disney’s Animal Kingdom and the must-try (or must run-away from, for some) item is Match the Species candy. Well, now, that doesn’t sound so bad, does it? There’s elephant, hippo, tamarin, and giraffe, and it looks just like their poop! Yep! Excrement! Feces! Droppings! Your kids’ll love it. Don’t let them try this at home!
The treats are $3.99 and my heroes over at Disney Food Blog were able to get their hands on the ingredients: “Cotton Top Tamarin Poop: Pretzel pearls coated in chocolate peanut butter fudge with sweet rolled oat flakes”; “Elephant Poop: chocolate peanut butter fudge with sweet rolled oat flakes and yellow coconut flakes”; “Giraffe Poop: Rolled chocolate fudgy brownie and freshly made caramel” and “Hippo Poop: Chocolate fudge brownie with peanut butter and rolled oats”.
I Just Flew Back From E3 and Boy, Are My Thumbs Sore!
Last week, I babbled like an exhausted person about Disney Infinity 3.0 taking over the world. And it pretty much did, over at E3. Every year prior to this one, Disney Interactive has been about one standout game and several others. There was Epic Mickey, but there was also a Brave area and a Princess area. This year: Nope, nope, nope. Infinity art design area. Avengers area. Star Wars area. Toy box area. Other Star Wars area. Other other Star Wars area. Everything was Infinity 3.0. Also, part of the XBOX and Sony pavilions were Infinity 3.0. For something that a few years ago game journalists poo-poohed as a “Skylanders rip-off” , Disney Infinity 3.0 has become a force (sorry) to be reckoned with.
But why? What does Infinity have that Skylanders and Amiibo (which are adorable and I adore them!) don’t? In my opinion, I think that Avalanche Software, the developers of the game, take the players’ intelligence and creativity for granted. They assume that the player is smart and imaginative, (in most of the games) and they’re rewarded by loyalty – many gamers are religiously loyal to the franchises they love – and good word-of-mouth. They hire players into the company to become creators. They build community. They’re doing it right. I wish they could find a way to do this with theme park fans as well as they do it with Infinity.
I do want to say thank you to Brett Gold and everyone at the Disney Infinity booth for their hospitality. We got a booth tour and a chance to have some hands-on time with the game, and they gave us a Sadness figure and sent along a Mickey figure to give to Jim (Noe was covering for him). This is disclosure, btw.
Star Wars Battlefront was the other AAA Disney property all over E3. And when I say all over, I mean ALL OVER. As soon as we walked into the hall, the EA booth was in-your-face Battlefront. Sports were pushed to the side for the first time in memory. There was a queue in the Sony booth as long as the one for The Last Guardian. Demand was so huge, Sony actually put a tent outside in front of the convention center for credentialed attendees to try the game and people queued up in the sun to try the game there. As a reward, they were able to pose for a photo inside a Tie-Fighter. No, I didn’t. Yes, I regret not doing it.
Here’s the speeder you could sit on in the EA booth:
Square Enix didn’t have a lot to say about Kingdom Hearts 3, other than that there’s a Kingdom Hearts 3 in the works and that we’ll learn more at The D23 Expo 2015, and a lone picture of Sora in his new outfit. I like it.
This Just In
Kirk Krikorian, the man who stripped MGM of its legacy, selling off its treasures and properties, then attempted to do the same to Disney before being stymied by Roy E. Disney and Frank Wells’ Brain Trust, died today, peacefully, at a ripe old age, wealthy beyond what most of us could possibly imagine.
What game are you most looking forward to? Would you eat….that? Do you have any news to share? If you do, share it with me at [email protected]
You must be logged in to post a comment.