Today Disney dropped a whole slew of new release dates for the studio through 2021. It might seem like a joke that humanity will even exist to see that year arrive, but hey, we can dream, and in those dreams there’s a lot to be excited about, including Indiana Jones 5.
Over nearly 80 years, the 56 feature films from Walt Disney Animation Studios have become beloved and instantly recognizable their iconic fairy tales, memorable comic-relief sidekicks, terrifying villains, and some of the greatest songs in cinema history. This week heralds the release of Disney’s latest animated film, Moana, which boasts songs co-written by Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. So there’s no better time to compile a list of the 25 best songs in animated Disney history — with a couple of important pre-list caveats. First, to avoid overloading the list with songs from only a few films, each movie here could only be represented by a maximum of two songs. Second, this list has films in the official Disney animation canon only, so nothing from Pixar or even The Nightmare Before Christmas. With that in mind, here’s the list!
The animated arm of Star Wars got a major pat with news that Rogue One would feature Forest Whitaker as a character created for The Clone Wars cartoon, further brightening prospects for current series Rebels to tie in with the films. Things are looking good on that front for Season 3 as well, at least according to executive producer Simon Kinberg.
Way back in 2012 (or at least it feels way back), Netflix and Disney struck a deal for all of Disney’s movies — including Marvel, Pixar and Lucasfilm — to stream exclusively on Netflix Instant. According to the terms of their agreement, the deal wouldn’t kick in until 2016, which just so happens to be the year in which we are currently living. As announced today, Netflix will officially begin streaming Disney films in September, but that doesn’t mean the studio’s entire library will magically appear in your Instant browser.
Along the western edge of Disneyland, rises a craggy peak of mossy cliffs, tangled tree roots, and thorny briar patches. This attraction — part animatronic carnival, part kid-friendly log flume — is known as Splash Mountain, and thanks to the technical wizards at Walt Disney Imagineering, it really looks like an authentic summit. But of course, it’s not; it was built in the late 1980s at a reported cost of some $75 million. It’s a very fun ride — and possibly the strangest in the entire Disney empire, since it’s essentially a giant $75 million monument to a movie that Disney has kept out of circulation for more than 30 years.
Deadpool demolished box office records, quickly becoming the biggest X-Men franchise film of all time and the highest-grossing R-rated film. It certainly wasn’t the first successful R-rated action comedy, but in terms of superhero films, Deadpool made a pretty major splash — which has fans wondering if we’ll see more comic book adaptations take the restricted rating route. While Warner Bros. appears to be open to the possibilities, there’s one studio that definitely won’t be taking a similar tack anytime soon…or ever.