Walt Disney Pictures

Hollywood's movie studios are heading to Comic-Con with less spring in their step this year. Stung by splashy presentations in the past that resulted in costly box-office duds like"Scott Pilgrim vs. the World"and"Green Lantern,"the major studios will not arrive in full force in San Diego for the annual event that begins Thursday. Although Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures, Warner Bros. and Lionsgate are making presentations and trumpeting their wares for fans, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures are skipping the show this year.

Walt Disney Pictures, Burbank, appointed Richard B. Cohen vice president-international video and pay television.

Walt Disney Pictures is going back to the theme park. The studio announced today that it was developing a new film based on its Haunted Mansion attraction, a live-action monster picture that uses characters and elements from the haunted house. Upping the news -- and intrigue -- level is the filmmaker taking it on: Genre auteur Guillermo del Toro will direct the film and co-write it with his "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" co-scribe Matthew Robbins. Guillermo del toro The news quells, at least for the moment, speculation about Del Toro's next move after unexpectedly leaving "The Hobbit" last month, though it's still conceivable the director could take on another development project.

If you can't join 'em, compete against 'em. With top pay cable channels HBO and Showtime and upstart Epix largely refusing to let Netflix stream movies during the long periods that they control the rights, the DVD subscription service is going around them, starting with independent film financing and production company Relativity Media. The two companies have signed a five-year-plus agreement through which Relativity's movies will be distributed via Netflix's Internet streaming service instead of the typical runs on pay-cable channels, which start four to seven months after a DVD release.

Walt Disney Pictures' decision to accelerate the release of its upcoming 3-D film "Alice in Wonderland" on DVD has sparked a revolt among movie theater owners in Europe. Major chains in the U.K. and the Netherlands have threatened to boycott the movie when it hits theaters March 5, a move that could cut into box-office revenue. The film adaptation based on classic characters of Lewis Carroll has become the latest battleground between studios and exhibitors over how soon movies should be released on DVD after they've opened in theaters.

The 2009 Holiday Movie Sneaks is a broad snapshot of films opening through early January. Compiled by Liesl Bradner, these release dates and other details are subject to change. Nov. 6 The Box A suburban couple faces a moral dilemma when they receive a wooden box promising $1 million if they push a button that will cause the death of another person. With Cameron Diaz, James Marsden and Frank Langella. Screenplay by and directed by Richard Kelly. Warner Bros. Pictures Died Young, Stayed Pretty A look at the underground indie-rock poster subculture in North America.

Walt Disney Pictures has gone to great lengths to promote its Nov. 21 animated movie "Bolt." But when the studio attached a six-minute-long promotion for the 3-D family flick -- about a superhero dog -- to film prints of its box-office hit "Beverly Hills Chihuahua," numerous theater owners said Disney had gone too far.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who's built a career on high-velocity action pictures, was turned off when Disney Studios sent him a script for a movie version of its theme park ride "Pirates of the Caribbean." It was bland, too tame, he told the Disney brass. After all, he's the man who brought the masses "Top Gun," "Armageddon" and "Bad Boys." Still, he was intrigued and brought aboard some like-minded creative types to jazz up the project.

How to target Latino moviegoers--or whether to even bother--has long confounded Hollywood. Walt Disney Pictures this weekend is taking that question more seriously with side-by-side English and dubbed Spanish releases of its new animated movie "The Emperor's New Groove" in 16 multiplexes across the Southland. For years, Disney and other studios have offered dubbed or subtitled prints of their movies to select theaters that requested them in heavily Latino markets around the country.

Lizards with horns glued to their heads and clay models no bigger than Barbie dolls painstakingly animated one frame at a time. These are the humble forebears of the computer-generated, remarkably lifelike creatures that lumber across the screen in the "photo-real" world of Disney's "Dinosaur," which opens May 19, the latest of about 160 films to feature the prehistoric beasts over the last century.

It is no secret that David Lynch, the writer-director-composer-painter, has an unusual relationship with Bob's Big Boy. For seven years in the 1980s he ate lunch there every day, ordering cup after cup of over-sweetened coffee and a single chocolate milkshake while scribbling notes on Bob's little square napkins.