Disney (NYSE: DIS) desperately wants to get its movie business back in some kind of order. Look no further than the recent departure of Dick Cook. According to the Los Angeles Times, the studio head was forced to resign by CEO Bob Iger because of poor performance (Iger was right to do this, but I'm not sure he's any smarter than Cook, to be honest . . .). Unfortunately, Disney's latest project, Surrogates, starring Bruce Willis, might not do much to help the cause.

According to Boxofficemojo, Surrogates came in second over the weekend at domestic theaters, behind Sony's (NYSE: SNE) Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. The Disney film captured an estimated $15 million versus Meatballs' $24.6 million (final numbers are due later).

Of particular interest is one piece of content that was highlighted in an article at the Los Angeles Times website. Disney is making a significant bet on an upcoming cartoon called The Princess and the Frog. It won't be a flashy 3-D production. Instead, it's animated in a 2-D environment.

Monday, August 31, 2009, will go down as one strange trading day. Disney (NYSE: DIS) buys Marvel (NYSE: MVL). BloggingStocks reported the details of the deal here.

As a long-time shareholder of Disney, I have to ask: Does CEO Bob Iger know what the heck he's doing anymore? I thought the news was quite surreal. I suppose we all knew that Marvel would be a takeover target someday but, honestly, I thought some other media conglomerate, like maybe News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS), would do a deal before the Mouse would.

Disney (NYSE: DIS) programmed a new movie recently on one of its prime media assets. The film, titled Princess Protection Program, debuted on the Disney Channel and stars a young actress named Selena Gomez. The casting choice was no accident. Because Disney tries to be as synergistic as possible (the company is generally good when it comes to the science of synergy, although there are certainly opportunities for it to be even better), the Mouse made sure to use Gomez since she is the popular star of another Disney Channel program called Wizards of Waverly Place, a project meant to capture at least a little of the Harry Potter magic.

Disney (NYSE: DIS), a media conglomerate that does battle with the likes of Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal, CBS (NYSE: CBS), and News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS), changed things up this time around when it came to second-quarter earnings. When I reported on the company's first-quarter earnings, I observed that the Mouse missed expectations. Thankfully, Disney pulled itself together and went beyond the call of Wall Street.

Disney said it earned 43 cents per share on an adjusted basis when it issued its Q2 release on Tuesday after the bell. As I noted in my earnings preview, analysts were looking for 40 cents per share. While that's a nice beat, let's be realistic: Disney is still having a rough time. That 43 cents per-share figure represented a drop of 26% compared to the year-ago period.

Disney (NYSE: DIS), a media conglomerate that competes with CBS (NYSE: CBS), Viacom (NYSE: VIA), Sony (NYSE: SNE), and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), will report fiscal second-quarter earnings on Tuesday, May 5. And it appears that investors should be prepared for a significant decline in the bottom line. Analysts believe that income may drop by over 30% to $0.40 per share. Yep, those magical days of profit growth are, for the time being, a thing of the past.

And it's not difficult to understand why. Disney is battling a recession. Consumers aren't spending money. They need all kinds of promotions and discounts to get them to open their wallets. So, theme parks and consumer products are understandably challenged. And then there's the advertising recession. That affects Disney's media properties. DVD sales? They're not as robust as they used to be. All in all, this is not a great time to be a shareholder of the Mouse.

So, Disney (NYSE: DIS) shareholders are bracing themselves for another big weekend at the box office. Remember when we were bracing ourselves for the release of the Jonas Brothers concert film? Yeah, that failure. I certainly hope Miley Cyrus does a lot better with her project.

But I have my doubts. Hannah Montana: The Movie opened Friday at over 3,100 domestic theaters. I just don't feel the kind of buzz I had hoped to be feeling at this point surrounding the movie. I don't have the sensation that I've been inundated by the feature's brand equity.

Then again, I'm not the target demographic. Perhaps Disney is reaching all tweens as we speak via the platforms that they frequent and I'm just not aware of it. Tough to tell. Nevertheless, I've seen some of the commercials, and they don't seem overwhelmingly exciting.

I'm sure you've heard about this by now. It's been all over the blogs and discussion boards. An article at The New York Times has spurned discussion over whether or not Disney's (NYSE: DIS) next Pixar film, Up, is shareholder-friendly. In other words, has it been designed so that it can make a lot of money? Or, is it instead just another self-satisfying exercise for its creators, shareholder value be damned?

Well, here's a quote that's gotten some play. Co-director of Up, Pete Docter, has stated that he doesn't really care about the money potential of a project. He said: "We make these films for ourselves. We're kind of selfish that way." Oh, gee, thanks a lot, you overpaid Pixar punk. Just out of curiosity, do you care at all about shareholders like myself who have held Disney for a really long time? Do you realize that the dividend received no raise this year?

Another day, another item about excessive compensation. While American International Group (NYSE: AIG) pays out a ton of money to its own employees, the Hershey (NYSE: HSY) board has seen fit to bestow a rich compensation package to CEO David J. West.

Oh well, what can you do, I suppose. I always hate reading these reports. They always get under my skin. If you're a shareholder of Hershey, you're not doing that great right now. The stock will probably do well over the long term, but in the meantime, your shares are down over the last several years.

This was a big weekend for me. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience was released in over 1,200 theaters. No, I had no plans to see the movie at my local IMAX (NASDAQ: IMAX) auditorium. The reason I was so excited is because I own shares of Disney (NYSE: DIS). And I was praying that the film would firmly cement the Jonas Brothers in the collective consciousness of tweens across the globe.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen. In fact, the Jonas movie failed at the domestic box office. Don't even try to spin it. According to Boxofficemojo, the film came in second place with a little under $13 million (keep in mind I am working off estimates, final figures will be released later). Lions Gate Entertainment's (NYSE: LGF) latest Tyler Perry project, Madea Goes to Jail, was number one again for the second week in a row, grossing about $16 million. This is really, really disappointing.

Disney (NYSE: DIS), a media company that competes with Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), and General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal, is famous for having several happy theme parks. The branding always centers on the "Disney magic." But there isn't any magic for employees who will be getting the boot.

According to news reports from last week, the theme-parks division will be streamlined, and buyout offers to 600 employees have been made. New attractions might be delayed. In addition, ABC made some cuts (200 jobs gone, in fact) and combined its studio and programming units. Also, ESPN instituted a hiring freeze.

I'll tell you, I find this such amazingly telling news. General Electric's (NYSE: GE) Universal Pictures apparently does not want to distribute a DreamWorks slate anymore.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, changes that DreamWorks wanted to make to the previous deal that was already hammered out did not pass muster with Universal execs. In a statement, Universal commented that such changes no longer fit the movie studio's business plan. You'll recall that Steven Spielberg and his DreamWorks company left the Viacom (NYSE: VIA) fold recently in pursuit of fresh funding and a new distribution partner to start life anew.

Whoa, what a terrible quarter for Disney (NYSE: DIS)! Forget the magic. There's no magic going on at Disney. For the fiscal first quarter, revenues decreased 8%, earnings per share decreased 29%, operational cash flow decreased 60%, and free cash flow was negative. Decrease, decrease, decrease! Looks like Disney's brands cannot fend off a recession, no question. Sorry, Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana.

Disney, which competes with Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), CBS (NYSE: CBS), Viacom (NYSE: VIA), News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) and General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal, earned, after taking out a $0.04 per-share benefit from an investment sale, $0.41 per share. According to my earnings preview, the call was for around $0.52 per share. Well, I thought the Mouse was going to miss, but I think I characterized the potential miss as maybe being on the "slight" side. Yeah, this wasn't a slight miss.

Disney (NYSE: DIS) will be reporting earnings for the fiscal first quarter Tuesday after the market close. There shouldn't be any growth in the bottom line. Of course, no one should be surprised by that. After all, this is Disney we're talking about, a company which provides goods and services that can easily be cut out of any consumer budget. Remember, conservation of cash is becoming quite the fad.

According to this source, Disney may earn $0.52 per share.That would represent a contraction of $0.11, or 17%. The big question is whether or not Disney will miss. If it does, investors won't be happy, because it'll be the second miss in a row. Wall Street was previously accustomed to seeing the Mouse religiously beat the analysts at their holy game. But Q4 changed the story.

Make no mistake, this news about Disney XD should be important to shareholders (I am one, and will be watching this rebranding investment intently). That's the new name of the Disney Toon channel. Sounds kind of cool, doesn't it? Disney wants it to be cool so that it can appeal to boys. And that's the crux here: Disney Channel already has the girls market cornered. The Mouse wants to become more relevant to the male tween demographic. Don't think that the media company can't appeal to boys. It can, as the oft cited Cars example proves (I have no idea why that Pixar creation is such a hit with boys, but it doesn't matter what I think, it is). A major push is planned for XD, and the web will be utilized to great effect, as will Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes digital store and Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Xbox 360 Live service (this source talks about the strategy). Content will be distributed over these platforms and will be used to build brand equity; Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Verizon's (NYSE: VZ) FiOS will also be utilized to promote XD.