A cover story in business magazine Fortune says Walt Disney Co. is becoming a hybrid entertainment/tech company and splashes images from the next “Star Wars” around corporate chairman Bob Iger.
A Variety” story says the photos in the Fortune profile provide the best shots yet for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which is inked for a Dec.18 premiere distributed by Walt Disney Studios. Disney bought “Star Wars”-home LucasFilm for $4 billion in 2012.
“According to Fortune, the cover shot was a custom build that was ‘rendered in wireframe form (a skeletal version) as well as a more layered textured render, which were combined in Photoshop to create the final image,’” says Variety.
Says the Fortune article of Disney, “Until last year the company’s interactive division, responsible for games and websites, had been in the red for five years, losing more than $1 billion. ‘We were too big and trying to do too many things,’ says Jimmy Pitaro, who oversees the unit.”
Fortune says Disney’s interactive unit generated an operating profit of $116 million on some $1.3 billion last year. “After a round of layoffs and reorgs, the division finally managed to get its footing. Outdated product lines—like console games—were nixed, and Disney poured $100 million into ‘Infinity,’ an interactive game that transports physical toys into an online world. Instead of trying to do it all themselves, Disney sparked large licensing agreements with outside developers such as Line, a Japanese company that developed a mobile game based on Tsum Tsum—plush, circular stuffed animals that vaguely resemble infantile versions of traditional Disney characters like Donald Duck and Goofy.”
The Walt Disney Co. sports $48 billion in total corporate sales and its stock is a darling of Wall Street, mainly on the strength of its TV channels that include the ESPN sports group.
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