FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DISNEY•PIXAR’S TOY STORY 3 WILL CROSS $1 BILLION TODAY; DISNEY TO BECOME FIRST STUDIO WITH TWO $1 BILLION FILMS IN ONE YEAR

BURBANK, Calif. – August 27, 2010 – Two weeks after becoming the highest-grossing animated film of all time, Disney•Pixar’s Toy Story 3 will cross the $1 billion mark at the global box office today,  joining Alice in Wonderland as the second $1 billion film this year from The Walt Disney Studios – the first studio in history to accomplish this feat.  Disney first crossed the $1 billion threshold with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest in 2006.  Toy Story 3 becomes the only animated film to reach this milestone and the seventh title in industry history. 

“It’s been an incredible year as we saw the Pixar team bring Buzz and Woody back to the big screen and watched Tim Burton’s vision for Alice in Wonderland take the world by storm,” said Rich Ross, Chairman, The Walt Disney Studios.  “These box office triumphs prove that creative storytelling brought to life by imaginative, inspired and talented professionals is something audiences respond to the world over.” 

As of Thursday (8/26/10), Toy Story 3 tallied more than $592.9 million internationally, Disney’s largest international animated release. Latin American audiences have contributed $138 million making Toy Story 3 the highest grossing Disney film ever released in the region.  Toy Story 3 is the most successful UK release in Disney history and currently stands as the fourth biggest title in territory history with $102.4 million in box office receipts so far.  In Japan, the film has taken in $111.2 million and spent five consecutive weeks as the #1 movie.  Toy Story 3 currently ranks as the #7 film in global box office history and domestically ranks #9 with $404.6 million in receipts to date.

Alice in Wonderland began setting records during its opening weekend (March 5-7), becoming the biggest March opening in industry history, the highest 3D opening ever and The Walt Disney Studios’ biggest opening for a non-sequel film.  Internationally, the film went on to tally more than $690 million, becoming Disney’s biggest overseas release of all time and the fourth biggest title ever released overseas.  Worldwide, the film took in $1.0243 billion, ranking it as the #5 film in global box office history. 

About The Walt Disney Studios
For more than 85 years, The Walt Disney Studios has been the foundation on which The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) was built. Today, the Studio brings quality movies, music and stage plays to consumers throughout the world. Feature films are released under four banners: Walt Disney Pictures, which includes Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios, Disneynature, Marvel, and Touchstone Pictures, which includes the distribution of live action films from DreamWorks Studios. Through the Home Entertainment and Television divisions, innovative distribution methods provide access to creative content across multiple platforms. Original music and motion picture soundtracks are produced under Walt Disney Records and Hollywood Records, while Disney Theatrical Group produces and licenses live events, including Broadway theatrical productions, Disney on Ice and Disney LIVE!.  For more information, please visit www.disney.com.

To infinity...and Facebook?

Disney has unveiled a new ticket application for "Toy Story 3" that allows Facebook users to purchase movie tickets on the social networking site.

Dubbed Disney Tickets Together, the Facebook application gives users the opportunity to order tickets in advance for the Pixar film, which then alerts friends and followers of the purchase. The social networking experiment, the first of its kind, could essentially change the way Hollywood sells tickets online.

Dan Rose, Facebook's VP of partnerships and platform marketing, tells the New York Times, “What Disney is doing moves beyond just creating awareness to using the platform to acquire customers directly,” Rose said. “This is the first time that a movie studio has tried this, which we think makes a lot of sense because moviegoing is one of those activities that is inherently social.”

According to the Times, Disney unveiled the new application May 26 on the "Toy Story 3" Facebook page, which currently has over 735,000 fans.

While Fandango.com remains the Internet's most popular destination for online movie tickets, Facebook is the King of the Web with over 500 million users worldwide. Thus, a successful "Toy Story 3" campaign would certainly boost the industry's ties with social network sites in general, not just Facebook; something online marketing execs have been touting as the wave of the future.

And Hollywood could surely use the increased awareness, especially after a dismal Memorial Day weekend, which marked a seventeen year-low for overall ticket purchases.

Let's just see if Facebook users "Like" the new ticket application, first. After all, not every tough guy wants his friends to know about a future date with Buzz Lightyear and Mr. Potato Head.

"Toy Story 3" hits theaters June 18.