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Digital Media FX News Archives

Thursday - November 1, 2001
- DreamWorks: "Disney Threatened to Pull THX Business"
- dFX Monsters, Inc. Site Opens Tomorrow
- Warner Bros. Recalls PowerPuff DVD Over Virus
- News Link of the Day - Star Wars Trailer Irks Studios

DreamWorks: "Disney Threatened to Pull THX Business"
(by digitalmediafx.com) DreamWorks is making a bold accusation against Disney over THX killing the planned joint Shrek/THX promotional that DreamWorks aimed to have released on November 2 in front of Monsters, Inc. and other movies at theaters that use the THX sound system.

According to the Los Angeles Times, "DreamWorks says that Disney threatened to pull all its business from THX, which also oversees audio and video for DVDs, unless the promotional item was canceled."

Disney, Pixar, and THX all deny the accusation. One Disney executive told the Los Angeles Times, "I know our friends at DreamWorks would love to blame us for everything."

DreamWorks got itself into the mess when it decided to launch campaigns to apparently interfere with the promotion and box office results of Pixar's Monsters, Inc. Not only did the moves backfire, but George Lucas ended up endorsing Monsters, Inc. by publicly praising Pixar and allowing the first trailer for Star Wars: Attack of the Clones to be attached to theatrical prints of Monsters, Inc.

Read these earlier Digital Media FX stories on this issue:

Shrek to Settle for Second Place (August 21 - 2nd and 3rd paragraphs)
DreamWorks Shrek Surprise Fails to Materialize (October 30)
For the Birds to Air in Front of Monsters, Inc. (October 31 - last 2 paragraphs)

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dFX Monsters, Inc. Movie Site to Open Tomorrow
(by digitalmediafx.com) The newest dFX Movie Site, for Monsters Inc., will open tomorrow to coincide with the release of Pixar's newest animated film that is being marketed and distributed by Disney. Monsters, Inc. opens on over 3,000 movie screens tomorrow with two exclusive theatrical trailers attached to it - Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and Lilo & Stitch.

Digital Media FX Movie Sites take an educational and in-depth look at select animated movies.

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Warner Bros. Recalls PowerPuff DVD Over Virus
(by digitalmediafx.com) Warner Bros. is recalling DVD copies of "The PowerPuff Girls - Meet the Beat Alls" because it spreads a computer virus called "FunLove". FunLove is a two year old virus that infects Windows files and sometimes displaying the message "~Fun Loving Criminal~". It continually increases the sizes of files on a hard drive, but does not destroy them.

The Warner Bros. PowerPuff Girls DVD spreads the virus through some of the DVD-ROM material that users of the DVD download to their computer. If you have "The PowerPuff Girls - Meet the Beat Alls" DVD then call Warner Bros. Home Video Customer Support at (800) 364-6928 for return options.

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News Link of the Day - Star Wars Trailer Irks Studios

According to the Washington Post:

"Under a watershed pact between two pioneering film producers, George Lucas' Lucasfilm will screen trailers of its upcoming Star Wars, Episode II—Attack of the Clones before Pixar Animation's Monsters, Inc., which opens Friday. The pact had nothing to do with the film's respective distributors, Fox and Disney, who now fear a slippery slope of trailer favor-swapping and an erosion of control over a time-tested link in the marketing chain..."

Click here for the full story.

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These news articles and all digitalmediafx.com content are ©copyright 2001 by Joe Tracy and may not be reused for any purpose without expressed written consent of the author and Digital Media FX. All rights reserved.