I know ‘Black is King’ is its own project and was never meant to be a remake of ‘The Lion King.’ But after watching it, I couldn’t help but think: Why wasn’t this the remake? A few years ago, when Disney announced it would be remaking The Lion King , I can’t say that I was swept up in the general excitement. Read Full Story

Bob Iger is no longer Disney’s Chief Mouse. Bob Iger is no longer running the show at Disney. In a startling press release , the House of Mouse announced Tuesday that Iger is stepping down as chief executive, effective immediately, and will assume the role of executive chairman. Read Full Story

Last week, several companies announced they would launch home testing for COVID-19. After the FDA said the tests weren’t authorized, many have been forced to pull their products. Last week, several direct-to-consumer health companies announced they would start selling do-it-yourself, home-based coronavirus tests. But the Food and Drug Administration made it clear that these “fraudulent test kits” were not authorized, forcing home test makers to change their plans. Read Full Story

“We believe Disney’s premium valuation is warranted, even compared to a group of dominant Internet companies,” says a new report from MoffettNathanson. Shares of the Walt Disney Company were trading at record highs on Friday after the entertainment giant unveiled a tidal wave of new movies and TV series and shared additional details about its broader strategic shift to streaming. Read Full Story

The streaming giant’s slate of films this year includes more than 60 titles bursting with A-list talent. Last year, Netflix dropped a Twitter thread announcing its slate of 2020 movies. This year it’s upped the ante, perhaps sensing that in a world now populated by Disney+, Apple TV+, HBO Max, and others , the company needs to strut its stuff with a little more hoopla. Read Full Story

Schools embraced an online learning program called Acellus because it promised convenience. Now, parents are cleaning up the mess. “MC” suspected something was amiss with the online learning platform Acellus Learning Accelerator long before parents accused it of providing racist and sexist content . When her school announced that it would use the program in the fall, the only reviews she could find on a popular homeschooling forum were a couple of threads insinuating that the program couldn’t be mentioned by name because of legal threats. Read Full Story

Despite the push for social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Disney theme parks and others remain open—and people are still going. UPDATE (3/12/20) : California governor Gavin Newsom announced in a press conference that the state’s executive order against mass gatherings will not including casinos, theaters, and theme parks, such as Disneyland. Read Full Story

Our confinement viewing options just opened up a bit. We’ll be updating this list as more titles are announced. Unprecedented times call for unprecedented actions. Practicing social distancing for many Americans means staying indoors and figuring out how to stay sane and entertained. And with cinemas closed, enjoying a new movie means streaming. Some movie studios have responded to the coronavirus crisis by making several recent movies available for streaming on platforms like Amazon and iTunes much more quickly than the usual three-to-six month post-theatrical release window. Some films are still in theaters. Even Disney put Frozen II on Disney Plus three months earlier than expected. Read Full Story

The appetite for information about an illness has never been higher. Here’s what people are asking. Over the past four hours, people across America have been searching for information about what “national emergency” means. This was likely caused by reports earlier today that the White House would declare one. And it did, in a speech by the president Friday afternoon from the Rose Garden. Read Full Story

What is the catalog that Disney Plus will have in Mexico and Latin America?