Disney deluge

Disney has its plate full at the moment. The Odeon cinema chain has followed through on its threat regarding Alice in Wonderland and will not be screening the film. Also, some early footage from Tangled has been leaked online. Never mind, Mouseketeeers, we’ve also got Toy Story 3 character posters: that’s the sort of publicity you like, right?

We reported last week that Disney was trying to shorten the time between the cinematic and DVD releases of Alice in Wonderland to combat piracy. As a knock-on effect, the cinemas would have a curtailed screening period and would not bring in the expected profit. A number of cinema managers threatened not to run the film but most appeared to have backed down – Cineworld and the Vue cinemas reached an independent agreement with Disney, but no details have yet been announced. But not Odeon.

In the UK, the theatrical window is 17 weeks, which Disney wants to cut to 12 on a case-by-case basis. An Odeon spokesperson said, “The negative impact on cinema attendance that such a reduction in the window will have will threaten the continued existence of many cinemas, especially the smaller and medium-sized cinemas." The group also pointed out that it had made a large outlay over the past few months in converting its cinemas to 3D capability.

Although the combined Odeon and UCI Cinema Group is Britain’s largest cinema chain (Cineworld and Vue are the second and third largest) its protest could just mean increased ticket sales for its rivals – and a combined response from the big three could have had better results.

Odeon’s refusal will not affect Alice in Wonderland’s Royal premiere on Thursday which will take place at the Odeon Leicester Square.

Check out some new Alice pictures while you're here.

A rough draft of Disney’s Tangled (formerly known as Rapunzel) has been leaked online. It’s mainly storyboards and very early stage animation, so don’t expect to get an idea of the quality of the finished film from these. You can, however, get a glimpse of two new characters: Pascal, Rapunzel’s pet chameleon and Maximus, the horse.

You can see quite clearly that Disney is putting the focus firmly on comedy and on its male lead Flynn, and taking a giant sidestep away from the classic fairytale and damsel in distress storyline. Whether or not this is a good thing we’ve yet to decide.

Seeing as we haven’t heard anything from Toy Story 3 in the past, oh five minutes, we thought we’d share the most recent character posters. We have what seems at first to be a typical group character poster, but wait, most of the toys are black out. Who could they be? Aren’t you just dying of suspense? No? Well us neither, but what a way to keep that carrot dangling in front of your nose. Every now and again a new character is allowed to step into the light and also gets its own poster. Here’s what we have so far.