The Walt Disney Company Investing More Than 500 Series For Regional Content For Disney+, This Includes More Regional European Animation and Anime For The Animation Catalog

Disney has previously revealed it has 500 shows in the pipeline outside of the U.S., but on Wednesday, the company broke down for the first time how those planned local-language programs are being dispersed throughout global regions.

According to Christine M. McCarthy, senior executive vice president and chief financial officer, 140 of those shows are in the works in the Asia/Pacific region, including Southeast Asia; 150 are in markets in Europe, West Asia and Africa; 100 are set up in India, and another 200 are being developed for Latin America audiences.

 

 

Elsewhere on the call, CEO Bob Chapek was pressed by analysts on another international topic: Disney’s lack of traction in recent months with getting its movies approved for release in China. Noting that the latest MCU release — “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” — reached nearly $500 million worldwide in its opening weekend without a berth in China, the world’s most populous country, Chapek said the box office split in China is not as generous for distributors as it is in other overseas markets.

 

‘It doesn’t really preclude our success, given the relatively lower take rate that we get in the box office in China compared to the rest of the world,” Chapek said.

Ahead of Disney’s quarterly earnings call on Wednesday, the company reported Disney+ gained 7.9 million customers in the first three months of 2022 to reach 137.7 million subscribers total. That new figure is up 33% year over year. The stat beat analysts expectations, as Wall Street had forecast Disney+ would net 5.2 million new subscribers for the quarter that ended on March 31, per FactSet.

Disney+ is currently available in 64 countries across North America, Europe, Asia/Pacific and Latin America. Disney+ Hotstar is offered by Disney in India.

 

Disney’s trio of streaming services reached 205.6 million globally (a quarterly net increase of 9.2 million, driven by Disney+). As of the end of the quarter, that included 45.6 million for Hulu (up 10% year over year) and 22.3 million for ESPN+ (up 62% year over year). Disney+ subs in the U.S./Canada region netted 1.5 million in the March 2022 quarter, to 44.4 million.

Also during the call, McCarthy said, while Disney had previously expected fiscal ’22 content spending to be as much as $33 billion, it now projects about $32 billion because of a “slightly slower cadence of spending than anticipated” during the first half of 2022.

A First For Nigeria: Zee World's Dance Naija Dance

From roaring success in India to inevitable greatness in Singapore and across 52 countries in Africa in 2021, it’s time for Zee World’s Dance Naija Dance in Nigeria.

Zee Entertainment’s popular General Entertainment Channel Zee World (DStv channel 166 and GOtv channel 125) will be keeping its viewers glued to their seats and screens with a dance show like no other. Dance Naija Dance, Zee World’s reality dance competition aims to reveal the best dance crew in Nigeria.

 

Zee World has been a trailblazer in redefining entertainment across Africa over the years with being the first to dub Indian series and movies dubbed in English, showcasing the first Afro-Indian Telenovela Mehek in 2018 and the first Pan-African inter-country fusion dance challenge, Dance Africa Dance in 2021. Zee World has evolved into a brand of global celebration bringing Africa and India together. Dance Naija Dance offers a fusion of Nigerian-Indian dance moves uniting both cultures through music, vibrancy, colour and diversity.

Dance Naija Dance will be anchored by a blend of Nollywood and Bollywood personalities and dancers. These include the Hosts - Hero Daniels and Pelumi Buari, Choreographers/Mentors - Sashin Kandhai and Kenneth Agabata; while Kunle Remi and Uraysha Ramrachia will be the judges.

The reality show is expected to run for 10 weeks and with not only a grand cash prize of five million naira but also prize hampers for the winning teams.

 

 

With the reality competition set to start airing in August, production has begun for the top 16 finalists selected from more than 350 entries across Nigeria. Dance Naija Dance will air in 52 countries in Africa and the Indian Ocean Islands.
ZEE Africa CEO (Sub-Saharan Africa & Indian Ocean Islands), Somnath Malakar said "Knowing full well how Zee World is important to the family entertainment needs in Nigeria, we have taken steps to ensure that we would always deliver. There is a deep love for Zee World among Nigerians and Zee World has become part of lifestyles. Introducing this show is one of our ways to thank Nigerians for all the love they have shown to us over the years. Nigerians are notable for their incredible dancing talents.

 

 

“We know that the economy is harsh and everyone is feeling it. Entertainment is one of the ways to lessen worries, provide an escape and make people happy. Zee World being an enabler of family happiness saw it fit to create something unique and electrifying,” Somnath said.
Dance Naija Dance Judge Kunle Remi said, "I am proud to be part of this show to mentor young talents, helping them tell stories with their bodies and ensuring that whatever is finally presented on stage is of high quality. These two cultures are known for using dance for storytelling. The highlight for me will be to see how the contestants will use their dance steps to tell entertaining stories that tickle both the judges and viewers at home."

Vice Distribution Signs Content Deal With e.tv In Africa

Vice Distribution, the global distribution and licensing arm of Vice Media Group, has announced its first partnership with South African broadcaster e.tv. More than 400 hours of non-fiction content from Vice Media Group will be made available on the national free-to-air broadcaster in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. Titles available will span all non-scripted genres from entertainment to feature documentary as well as lifestyle programming and true crime.

 

Shows available to e.tv viewers for the first time include Vice franchises such as "Dark Side of the Ring", "Most Expensivest", "Black Market" and "F*** That's Delicious". Premium Vice content such as "The Big Squeeze", a feature documentary telling the definitive story of Gamestop, and true crime docuseries "Betraying the Badge" about police officers who turn bad, will also air on the channel.

 

Vice Distribution launched in 2020 with a catalogue of over 1000 hours of programming that includes the Emmy award-winning "ViceNews Tonight", "True Believers" on alleged cults, a series about links between true crime and food titled "Devoured", and the Paramount+ UK commission "MH370: The Lost Flight" documentary series.

For those wondering through the TV Guide as they see no mention of the shows. Basically most if not all the content picked up or produced by eMedia Investments are labelled under e.tv and at the moment all this content can be viewed on the Xposed channel on Openview.

Roundups #50: Dora The Explorer Horror Series Currently Streaming On YouTube, The Bad Guys TV Series Rumoured To Be In Development On DreamWorks And Plants Vs. Zombies Scrapped Feature Film From DreamWorks

Dora The Explorer and Learning With Pibby rip-off

Amanda The Adventurer follows the escapades of the titular character and her sheep friend Woody except it contains more darker themes which is where the Adult Swim original Learning With Pibby tags along.

The project was produced by James Pratt's (Woody) Gaming Design and was meant to give viewers a nostalgic and curiosity feel. The main characters are the centre peace to the whole show with others being plot fillers who are quickly forgotten.

 

Throughout the show, viewers will be encouraged to help Amanda on her journey if you get the answer wrong she huffs and puffs and as episodes go by you'll see several warning signs until the inevitable end.

The Bad Guys might be coming to a station near you

The #1 movie in the U.S. follows a group of criminal animals who, upon being caught, pretend to attempt to reform themselves as model citizens, only for their leader to find himself genuinely drawn to changing his ways as a new villain has his own plans.

 

In an interview with Marc Maron (the voice of snake), it was said that a TV series might be in development. A friend of his auditioned for his role and went on to joke about the whole issue. Most of the cast members expressed interest in a sequel.

At the moment, DreamWorks Animation hasn't confirmed anything for The Bad Guys but the idea of a TV series doesn't seem far fetched almost all their movies particularly ones as big as Madagascar and Dragons come with a prequel.

 

Plants Vs. Zombies movie enters the recycle bin

Plants vs. Zombies is a video game franchise developed by PopCap Games, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts (EA) where players take on the role of a human as they have to defend their home from a couple of mindless zombies.

According to sources, a feature film from DreamWorks Animation was currently underway with several concepts and ideas already planned. The news came at the time the beloved video game alongside Angry Birds were on the verge of extinction.

 

The first Plants Vs. Zombies game is available on Insidus Games.

Development Hell: The Lost Stuart Little Reboot

Stuart Little is 1945 American children's novel by Charlotte Web writer, E.B. White. It was his first children's book which went on to be widely recognized as children's literature with illustrations handled by Garth Williams, an artist who worked on several children's books.

From 1999-2005, the novel was adapted into two live-action and computer animated films with the third solely focused on animation. The first two films recieved praise for its humor and visual effects while the last one killed all aspects the first two worked hard to conceive.

 

 

Since 2015, a remake has been discussed with no updates available for the past couple of years. According to entail, it will revolve mainly on the books and not that of the 1999 film.

Just like Disney's Pocahontas, even Stuart Little recieved some re-editing throughout the books. Take for instance, Stuart who worked as a teacher to make a living in order to search for the family bird Margalo who was likely eaten by a friend of Snowbell.

 

Anyways, the talk is not on the book but the remake questions amount to how original this movie will turn out to the book cause if anything I wouldn't be shocked if they tried to modernize the whole franchise and add stuff like k-pop or WAP items that didn't exist in his timeline.

 

According to Giant Freakin Robot, Marvel's very own Star Lord (played by Chris Pratt) might be in talks to star as the little guy in the long awaited remake. He will be voicing the video game character Super Mario in the movie of the same name even has a project for Garfield The Cat.

If this is true, then it would be the first time in almost a decade since we've gotten actual news from the little mouse.

Development Hell: Countdown To The List Of Bollywood Channels Coming Soon

Just going a through a list of concepts which was discussed, rumoured, delayed or potentially scrapped. Some of Bollywood channels currently seen on DStv and Openview were derived from several other concepts.

But I'm not here to discuss that but share a list of other channels and it goes as follows:

 

1. eBella/eBolly
The defunct channel was said to make a comeback as a replacement to one of the current Indian channels on Openview. The channel was said to offer Bollywood films something you hardly get on eMovies and other entertainment.

2. &TV
&TV is a Hindi language entertainment channel operated by Zee Entertainment Enterprises home to shows viewers would have come across on Zee TV such as Begusarai, The Heir and on eVOD Dayan, Destructive Beauty. The reasons for its absence has to do with Zee TV as they licence content from the brand and with both being operated by the same company the two are in sink.

The only known regions to provide it a standalone is the US and Asia.

 

3. Star Maa
Star Maa is a Telegu entertainment channel operated by Star India which broadcasts dramas, reality shows and movies. The channel was said to launch on DStv Indian.

4. Untitled Zee World repeats channel 1
Around the time Zee Bollynova launched on the defunct Kwesé TV and before Zee One existed. Rumour had it that MultiChoice was looking to add a reruns channel for their #1 Bollywood entertainment channel which could have been scrapped for Zee Alem.

5. Star Gold
Star Gold is the brand name Star India gives to their movie channels. This was part of list of possible movie channels on DStv but the channel be viewed on StarSat.

6. Untitled Zee World repeats channel 2
Close to the launch of Zee Alem in Ethiopia, Zee Entertainment Enterprises revealed in an interview that they were open to launching some regional channels. The second repeats channel was said to cater for Zulu, Swahili and Hausa viewers.

 

7. Life OK/Utsav
Disney+ is scheduled to launch in South Africa in the coming month and Star branding has been replaced with Utsav in most parts of Europe where the African feed operates. The question boiled down to the potential brand name for Star Life and its programming.

8. Zee Naija
Unlike most other Zee channels, this brand wouldn't cater entirely to repeats as there was a bunch of local content being planned such as Dance Nigeria Dance, Deceptive Measures and The Passion For Love.

 

9. Untitled Star Life movie channel
Unlike Star Gold, the movie channel would have been dubbed in English and would give the main channel sometime to source out other programming.

10. Bollytunes & Zee Music
Remember that TV show that had no purpose to Zee World as the program aired between shows well it was said to have its own channel one for English audiences another for Indian subscribers on DStv.

11. Untitled eMovies channel
eMedia Investments was rumoured to launch a Bollywood pop-up channel for movies before the pandemic hit and there's been no updates in that regard except that the possibility of a third movie channel.

 

12. Zindagi
Zindagi was the name of a brand Zee Entertainment Enterprises gave to their regional offering. What this channel did was air regional content kind of like the African adaptation of Mehek but it could have been scrapped as the brand is not active.

13. Zee Zest
Zee Zest is a Hindi entertainment channel operated by Zee Entertainment Enterprises and compared to all other channels on the list this one airs lifestyle and reality shows. It was said to launch on DStv Indian when it was known as Living Foodz.

 

14. Zee World and Zee One's replacements
The parent company of the channels are minority owners of the brands and rumour had it that the brands would include more content from Sony Pictures India as well as adapt to Sony branding.

15. Zee News (likely scrapped)
Zee News is a Hindi news channel operated by Essel Group that is also in charge of another news station on DStv, WION.

16. Zee Oldies
A channel for older dramas in the 90s to early 00s