Production is officially underway on Disney's upcoming live-action retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story, Maleficent.

Walt Disney World has an official policy that prohibits guests from dressing up in adult costumes "that can be viewed as representative of an actual Disney character" so as to not confuse children looking for "the real deal."

Walt Disney Animation Studios' upcoming 3D animated feature Wreck-It Ralph tells the story of a video game villain (John C. Reilly) who aims to prove he's not all bad.

It's a big day for the world's most eccentric billionaires: Disney has announced plans to open up membership to its super secret exclusive restaurant/probable sex thing Club 33 for the first time in ten years.

Bay Area "film recycler" Bryan Boyce unleashes upon an invariably unprepared world his "re-imagineering" of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver that tracks a "Mickey Mouse-obsessed Travis Bickle as he looks for love in a rapidly transforming New York City."

This year's Disneynature's Earth Day documentary offering, Chimpanzee, is the latest in a rash of documentaries about the emotional lives of animals to emerge in the past year or so. Project Nim, One Lucky Elephant and The Whale (my favorite of the bunch because it was responsible for one of the most moving cinema experiences I've ever had) dissect and bemoan humans' complicated relationship with those whom we share Earth with – the good, the bad, the exploitative. Those three movies present stories of direct human interaction and, more specifically, how human interruption can severely fuck up innocent animal lives.

A workprint of a lost documentary about the tumultuous making of Disney's 2000 animated The Emperor's New Groove has magically appeared on YouTube (Update: And now it's gone, but we've put up a particularly tense clip). The back story, via MousePlanet's Wade Sampson, prominently features Sting, so you know it's sexy:

Epic fantasy flop John Carter is going to cost Disney big bucks: on Monday, the studio released a statement projecting a total loss of $200 million.

Surely it's just a coincidence that Tiana, the only black princess in the storied history of Disney animated films, is the face of Dig 'n Dips watermelon-flavored candy? And that Cinderella Aurora of Sleeping Beauty is the vanilla-flavored dipping stick? Yeah, that's totally a coincidence. Right, guys? Guys? [via Sociological Images]

Jason Segel, the sitcom star who is just dying to make it big in the movies, luuurrrrvved The Muppets so much that he convinced Disney to bring the franchise back and cowrote their recent movie. But now that he's popular in Hollywood he's too big for the Muppet's planned sequel.

America currently has three major 24-hour cable news networks. The repugnant right wing propaganda one that's actually successful, and the one that's trying to be left wing propaganda that's less successful, and the one that used to be the "real news" one and is now pretty much down for whatever in order to avoid being the least successful.

Hey there fashionistas,

Chalk one up for middle-aged mundanity over the edgy glamour of youth. Disney will pay around $40 million for Babble Media, the oft-maligned blogging hub for hipster parents, sources tell Business Insider. Disney will also onboard Babble's founders, whose hyperliterate porn mag Nerve was a critical smash but never very financially successful.

In your finally Friday media column: Carlos Slim parsed, a Miami reporter has a bad day, Michael Wolff lives on at Adweek, James Murdoch's board seat in jeopardy, and Disney's CEO will peace out in four years.

TV's favorite serial killer is in a contract dispute with his network. Also today: good news about Matt Saracen, weird news about Werner Herzog, nostalgic news from Disney, and half-bad news from NBC.

The lions of Pride Rock reigned supreme again this week — even golden lion-human Brad Pitt couldn't dethrone them. And Pitt was almsot defeated by a dolphin as well. What do the animals have against Brad Pitt??

The SEC has charged a 26 year-old named Toby Scammell (HEH) with insider trading, after he made nearly $200K on stock deals after learning from his Disney-employed girlfriend that Disney was going to buy Marvel. How many objectionable things do we know about Toby?

Here's an unsettling trailer for the Disney drama The Odd Life of Timothy Green, which stars Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton (doing a Gerard Butler-esque growly American accent) as an infertile couple that gets drunk one night and wills a son into existence.

Here's a trailer for Disney/Pixar's (yup) John Carter, a space epic based on Edgar Rice Burroughs's old-timey Barsoom pulp novel series. This is to be Taylor Kitsch's big star-maker, so will it work?

Here's a trailer for Brave, Pixar's first fairy tale—and first film featuring a female lead—which will hit theaters next June. Set in the Scottish Highlands, Brave tells the story of a little red-headed warrior princess named Merida and her courageous fight against the tradition of her land and a mysterious, menacing beast. And considering this is a Pixar film we're talking about, it shouldn't be long before Merida has the hearts of moviegoers everywhere.