Today I have two very different news stories to share; the one is brief, but important, so I just matched it up with the other story I planned on running. For the first one: wdwinfo.com has the scoop that applications are now being accepted for the 2012 class of the Disney Dreamers Academy.
A quick refresher into the Disney Dreamers Academy: it’s a joint venture by Disney World, actor/writer/comedian Steve Harvey, and Essence Magazine to promote youth education. Around 100 youth are chosen every year to visit Disney World for four days free of charge.
While there they’ll of course get the opportunity to explore the park, but the real purpose of the Dreamers Academy is the sessions for attendees put on by business leaders on various vocational skills. It’s basically a Disney-sponsored career conference.
Applications for the 2012 Dreamers Academy must be sent by October 31, 2011. The event takes place on March 8-11, 2012. Find more information and/or submit an application at the Disney Dreamers Academy website.
My additional piece of unrelated news focuses on “King of the Elves,” an on-again off-again Disney project. Based on a short story by science fiction and fantasy author Phillip K. Dick (the man who wrote the story that would become the movie “Blade Runner”), the movie, like its source material, is a modern fantasy.
Disney blog “Your Highway in the Sky” has all the plot details of the film, plus its latest status update. One evening in the Mississippi Delta, gas station owner Shadrach Jones is reclining at home when he observes a troop of elves pass by his house.
Noting their sorry state he invites them to spend the night, letting them use his bedroom. The next morning, Jones wakes up to discover that these elves were an army journeying with their wounded king. The king passed in the night, and his last decree was to make Jones his successor.
Disney first announced “King of the Elves” as a project in 2008, alongside “Brave” and “Tangled.” Unlike those other films, however, production on “King of the Elves” soon seemed to stagnate.
Now Disney’s hired a new writer for the movie and announced its release date. Michael Markowitz is best known for comedies, which I think is just fine. As long as “King of the Elves” has plenty of the magic its title alone promises, if it’s also funny (like “Tangled”) more’s the better. I’m also excited about the release date, now set for late 2013.
I might not want to wait that long to see “King of the Elves,” but I hope that Disney announcing it as a 2013 holiday flick means the studio has committed to actually making the movie. Yes, “The Snow Queen” may have originally been given a 2013 release date, but that was years ago.
In film production time, especially for an animated feature, 2013 isn’t far off at all. Let’s hope this new writer will be the last of the many hired and that “King of the Elves” will make it to theaters on schedule.
Related Articles:
Tickets for Special Events at the Epcot Food Festival
Disney at E3 and Other Video Games Update
Disney Party Tickets and Animal Kingdom Update
Selena Gomez to Star in New Prank Show?