Our Industry Diary, August & September 2023: New acclaim for Dr. Alex Ross
InkTip partnership, Royal Historical Society, Newsweek, Amazon news
It’s been another lively period for us, and the end of the WGA strike opens up many doors for us and our winners again – but a lot was already happening, as you can see here! Lots to tell you about from this period including impressive new acclaim for Dr. Alex Ross!
- We’ve renewed our partnership with InkTip, enabling us and 4 of our winners to gain significant exposure to successful producers – more on this soon!
- WriteMovies’ founder and Elite Consultant Dr. Alex Ross has TWICE featured in Newsweek lately – talking about modernizing Disney’s catalogue and why “‘Sound of Freedom’ Becomes One of the Biggest Independent Films Ever Made:”
- Alex Ross has been made a fellow of the Royal Historical Society – some accolade! Alex says: “It’s a pretty cool honour as the fellowship is the highest form of membership and really tough to get”! Read about it here.
- Meanwhile Dr. Alex has earned many top reviews for his book, The Evolution of Hollywood’s Calculated Blockbuster Films: Blockbusted – don’t forget WriteMovies subscribers get a 30% discount!
- The next book by Dr. Alex Ross is also shaping up as a blockbuster insight into a hugely talked-about movie – we’re looking forward to revealing this soon!
Dr. Alex Ross featured in Newsweek!
BLOCKBUSTED author speaks out on modernizing Disney’s problematic older content
As controversies rage about the problematic features of traditional Disney films and content, Newsweek has published an article about how “Disney Is Offending Its Audience”, and our founder is prominently featured. Here’s what Dr. Alex Ross had to say when featured in Newsweek:
“Disney would face an “impossible” task to ensure its vintage titles met today’s standards, according to Alexander Ross, author of The Evolution of Hollywood’s Calculated Blockbuster Films: Blockbusted.
“What would be even worse would be to ban the inappropriate; elements. We need to see these within a historical context [as a] reflection on the times. They shed light on our past, however unpleasant,” Ross told Newsweek. “With the now usual advisories, they should remain accessible to those who are interested. We need to continue engaging with these, the worst thing that could happen would be to shut down the debates.”
Ross was referring to Disney’s decision to put advisories ahead of older shows and films on its streaming service, Disney+, warning of potentially offensive content and even putting age restrictions on beloved titles such as Dumbo, Peter Pan and The Aristocats.
“Whether Disney can sanitize some of the problematic IP [intellectual property] in order to commercialize it is an entirely different matter. Some of their older IP, going back to their earlier, classic animation films is very valuable and adds hundreds of millions to the value of the studio’s library,” Ross added. “Does re-tooling it to make it acceptable and relevant to new generations make sense? Absolutely.”
CLICK HERE to read the full article at Newsweek.com!
CLICK HERE to hire Dr. Alex Ross as consultant for your own project.