Studio Entertainment

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Walt Disney Pictures

Greater emphasis was placed on Walt Disney Pictures in 2000 in order to strengthen the Disney brand further and enhance The Walt Disney Studios' position as the leading supplier of high-quality family entertainment. The strategy has started to pay off, with Walt Disney Pictures releasing several major hits during the year, including: Disney's The Kid, starring Bruce Willis and directed by John Turtletaub; Remember The Titans, starring Academy Award-winner Denzel Washington and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer; and 102 Dalmatians, starring Glenn Close and Gerard Depardieu.

Peter Schneider Chairman, The Walt Disney Studios

Notable films for 2001 include: The Princess Diaries, the story of a girl who discovers at age 15 that she is actually a princess, starring Julie Andrews and directed by Garry Marshall; The Rookie, the true story of a high school teacher and baseball coach who revives his dream of pitching in the major leagues, directed by James Lee Hancock; Winterdance, starring Cuba Gooding Jr., which follows the adventures of a Miami dentist who learns that he has inherited a team of Alaskan sled dogs; and Santa Clause 2, in which Tim Allen reprises his role as the title character in the 1994 holiday comedy The Santa Clause. Touchstone Pictures A diverse selection of features from Touchstone Pictures realized solid box office performance in 2000, fueled by live-action hits, including two produced by Jerry Bruckheimer: Gone in 60 Seconds and Coyote Ugly, as well as the Spyglass-produced action comedy Shanghai Noon.

Unbreakable, the follow-up film from M. Night Shyamalan, director of the 1999 blockbuster The Sixth Sense, and starring Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson, premiered Thanksgiving weekend with an opening box office of $46 million.

The much-anticipated Pearl Harbor, directed by Michael Bay, produced by Bruckheimer and starring Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale, will premiere Memorial Day weekend.

Among Touchstone's other releases for 2001 is At 17, a provocative teen drama in which Nicole (Kirsten Dunst), a spoiled and rebellious rich girl, falls in love with Carlos Nuņez (Jay Hernandez), an intelligent and studious Latino boy from the other side of the tracks. At 17 is directed by John Stockwell.

Also premiering is The Count of Monte Cristo. Based on the classic novel by Alexandre Dumas and directed by Kevin Reynolds, the film portrays dashing young sailor Edmond Dantes (Jim Caviezel), who is betrayed by his best friend, Fernand (Guy Pearce). Edmond takes on a new identity in order to wreak retribution against those who unjustly imprisoned him for 13 years. Big Trouble, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by humor columnist Dave Barry and directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, stars Tim Allen and Rene Russo in a twisted and wacky tale of an unsuccessful ad executive in Miami who finds himself caught between two hit men on a routine assignment and an arms smuggling venture gone awry. Walt Disney Feature Animation Under the leadership of chairman Roy Disney and president Thomas Schumacher, Walt Disney Feature Animation enjoyed an outstanding year in terms of performance and artistic achievement, releasing three films during the year. First was Toy Story 2, the blockbuster feature from Disney/Pixar, which took in a total of $246 million.

Fantasia/2000: The IMAX® Experience provided a spectacular opening to the new millennium, offering seven new animated sequences set to such musical classics as Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, as well The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the timeless favorite from the original Fantasia. After the world premiere at Carnegie Hall, Fantasia/2000 embarked on a global tour that included performances in London, Paris and Tokyo, before settling in for a record-breaking four-month run at IMAX® theaters around the world.

Roy E. Disney Vice Chairman, The Walt Disney Company and Chairman, Walt Disney Feature Animation, shown here in front of a photo mural of his father, Roy O. Disney

Dinosaur employed a groundbreaking combination of live-action backgrounds and computer-animated dinosaurs, mesmerizing audiences with its visually stunning portrayal of a herd of dinosaurs fighting for survival. It was the top-grossing Disney film for summer 2000, earning more than $137 million by early November. The holiday release of The Emperor's New Groove delighted audiences with its madcap story of the self-absorbed young emperor (David Spade) who strikes an unlikely alliance with a peasant (John Goodman) and discovers the true meaning of friendship. Walt Disney Feature Animation offers two major event films for the 2001 summer and holiday box office seasons. Atlantis: The Lost Empire opens in June, starring Michael J. Fox as the voice of Milo Thatch, an inexperienced young adventurer who joins a group of daredevil explorers to find the legendary lost empire. James Garner, Leonard Nimoy and David Ogden Stiers also provide voices. This is Disney's first-ever animated action film, and is directed by Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale (Beauty and the Beast and The Hunchback of Notre Dame) and produced by Don Hahn (The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and The Hunchback of Notre Dame).

The 2001 Thanksgiving holiday will see the release of Monsters, Inc., an all-new computer-animated feature from Disney's partners at Pixar, the creators of Toy Story, A Bug's Life and Toy Story 2. Monsters, Inc., is a comedy set in the realm of things that go bump in the night, where chaos breaks loose after a hapless monster accidentally lets a human child into the secret world. The film features an all-star voice cast, including John Goodman, Billy Crystal, James Coburn, Steve Buscemi and Jennifer Tilly. The teaser trailer can be viewed on monstersinc.com or on the Toy Story 2 video and DVD.

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