• Wall Street Journal, Friday, March 12, 2010 10:49 AM

The Walt Disney movie studio is retreating from a strategy of producing and marketing one-off comedies, Ethan Smith reports, to focus on films that can be branded across its network of theme parks, videogames and commercial products. One example, sources familiar with the plan say, is an upcoming Muppets movie.

Disney also bought Marvel Entertainment last August, giving it a stable of 5,000 comic-book characters -- including Captain America, Spider-Man and Iron Man -- to exploit. New studio chairman Rich Ross wants to remake the studio into an ecosystem of three well-known divisions -- Pixar, Marvel and Disney Studios proper -- that would each produce its own flavor of movie, a sources tells Smith. Disney also has exclusive distribution rights to Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks SKG.

Disney, of course, pioneered the concept years ago with its "princess" movies such as "Beauty and the Beast" and "Little Mermaid." But recent productions have had no merchandise or theme park potential -- and no way of recouping their investment if they fizzled at the box office.

Read the whole story at Wall Street Journal »