disney

Will 2012 be remembered as the year Lucasfilm went to the dark side?

We'll know in a few years, when the first Disney-produced "Star Wars" movie is released. Yes, the Hollywood giant agreed to pay more than $4 billion for George Lucas' media empire. The news touched a nerve with Star Wars nerds everywhere, who immediately feared for the future of the storied series, with visions of Mickey Mouse-shaped Death Stars and saccharine, family-friendly story lines. We'll find out whether our fears of a Disney-fied galaxy far, far away are founded in 2015, when Disney plans … Read more

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is starting to look more like the guy who helped Netflix seize an early lead in Internet movie streaming and boost the company's share price last year above $300.

The Web's top video-rental service is being applauded after announcing yesterday that it had reached an agreement to become the exclusive subscription TV service to offer Disney's films starting in 2016. Netflix will get access to new releases from the studio during a span of time known in Hollywood as the pay-TV window, i.e., after the films have appeared in theaters and gone … Read more

Disney said today that it has signed an exclusive film distribution deal with Netflix starting in 2016.

Netflix will become the only U.S. subscription TV service to offer films from Pixar, Marvel, Walt Disney Animation and Disneynature. Wall Street seemed overjoyed by the news. Netflix shares rose 14 percent following the announcement.

To help readers better understand the deal, CNET has put together this FAQ.

Why is this agreement special? It's the first time that Netflix has acquired access to relatively newer movies from one of Hollywood's top six film studios. Netflix has plenty of titles produced … Read more

First the good news: Disney agreed to give Netflix exclusive U.S. access to some of its top movies.

Now, the bad news: The deal doesn't kick in until 2016.

The companies announced today that Netflix will become the exclusive U.S. subscription television service for first-run, live-action and animated feature films from the Walt Disney Studios. Netflix will receive access to the movies after they're made available for sale and rental.

Sure, the delay is a drag. But this is still a groundbreaking deal for Netflix and the entertainment industry. In the past, Netflix has typically obtained … Read more

Disney Fish Hooks takes after the popular Disney cartoon of the same name. The game follows Milo and his friends through different mazes. We found it surprisingly challenging and lots of fun.

Disney Fish Hooks opens with a simple menu. Through the Settings feature, you can turn the music and sounds off and on. The first step is to select a tank, but since we were new, we were only able to choose Freshwater High; the other tanks were locked until we scored enough points. The same went for the characters; we were only allowed to play with Milo since … Read more

This week, Xbox rumors are back, making Karyne hyperventilate; Google might release its own Chromebook by the end of the year; and we have a very bad feeling about these "Star Wars" rumors.

As you know, Disney purchased Lucasfilm recently, giving it the rights to the "Star Wars" franchise. (On a side note, George Lucas took all the profit from the sale and donated it to charity to improve American public education. Seriously, he is the greatest American alive.) But fans everywhere are letting their imaginations run wild, worrying about what Disney will do to the … Read more

When "Star Wars" first came out in 1977, block-long lines were common outside theaters everywhere.

People were entranced by George Lucas' space opera, his tale of the struggle between a rebel alliance and an evil empire bent on domination of the galaxy at all costs. But how much did fans of the film -- and its sequels -- know about Lucas' inspirations?

Did they know, for example, that the film was full of allusions to the Vietnam War? Or that nuclear weapons were a model for the power of the Death Star? Or that the resistance of Princess … Read more

Disney will close a little-known Internet movie streaming service at the end of the year, apparently unable to generate enough interest or revenue.

Disney Movies Online, which allowed people to rent and buy streamed movies from the Disney library, including those made by subsidiary Pixar, will shut down on December 31, the media giant announced today in an e-mail to customers and notice posted to the service's Web site. It also allowed titles that had been purchased as DVDs and Blu-rays to be streamed online.

Purchases can no longer be made on the site, but customers can continue to … Read more