Disney shares are trade around their all-time high.  But Wednesday looks like a day Disney will dump a ax for a expected layoffs. I have schooled that about 150 people during Walt Disney Studios will accept pinkish slips. Sources contend a cuts will come from opposite all of Disney Studios businesses, including a song and NYC-based entertainment departments. At this indicate it looks like a one-time turn of layoffs, though an altogether reorder inspiring other groups is planned for after this year and that could embody some-more cuts. They’re coming as a outcome of an inner examination systematic late final year by CEO Bob Iger and CFO Jay Rasulo to pinpoint remaining positions and boost efficiency. But a association is already doing good with mega-blockbusters including The Avengers. Net increase for a mercantile year that finished in Sep increasing 18% to $5.7 billion on revenues of $42.3 billion.

Related: Disney Fiscal Q1 Earnings Revenues Beat Expectations

The projected staff cuts this week are not a initial to strike a incomparable Disney sovereignty of late. LucasArts, a video diversion multiplication of a recently acquired Lucasfilms, shuttered a prolongation on Apr 3 and laid off around 150 employees. There were also layoffs in Lucasfilms’ animation dialect after Disney announced in March that it was discontinuing prolongation of a long-running Star Wars: The Clone Wars for Cartoon Network and pursing “ a new instruction in charcterised programming.” In September, some-more than 100 Disney Interactive employees mislaid their jobs in what was called a reorder within a online unit.

Deadline’s Dominic Patten – tip him here.

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ATT’s U-verse business now have entrance to live and on-demand programming from 3 cablers in a Disney/ABC Television Group overlay opposite opposite Internet inclination — though it’s not transparent either Alphabet net’s still-in-development TV Everywhere app is also lonesome underneath telco pact.

Trio of services (Watch Disney Channel, Watch Disney XD and Watch Disney Junior) are accessible to U-verse TV business with analogous subscriptions to a linear TV nets. Companies are silent on either “Watch ABC,” a  similar app that would let business of TVE partners watch live promote TV, would be accessible underneath ATT pact.

Major TV providers still absent from Mouse House’s TV Everywhere lineup embody DirecTV, Dish Network and Time Warner Cable. Those that now offer a Disney “Watch” apps are: Comcast, Cox Communications, Cablevision Systems, Charter Communications and Midcontinent Communications.

Current Disney TVE services yield entrance to wire skeins including Disney Channel’s “Good Luck Charlie” and “Phineas and Ferb” to business of participating pay-TV providers around particular websites and apps for Apple iOS, Android, Microsoft Xbox and Kindle Fire devices. Content includes an “extensive charity of advantaged-window on demand” episodes, according to Disney.

Last month, ATT launched WatchESPN service, as good as linear Disney Junior channel directed during kids aged 2-7. Disney calm also will be combined shortly to ATT’s uverse.com and U-verse apps, companies said.

The former Mouseketeer, 70, had mixed sclerosis.

Disney’s central fan bar has only damaged a news on Twitter:

Annette Funicello has died during age 70.

The actress, thespian and dear Mousketeer had been hospitalized due to complications from mixed sclerosis, according to Extra.

The Disney Fan Club says Funicello died currently during Mercy Southwest Hospital in Bakersfield, Calif.

Her family reliable to Extra that Funicello died from complications of mixed sclerosis. They were by her side when she was taken off life support. Funicello had been in an MS coma for years, reports a site.

Funicello was 12 when she became a Mouseketeer. As a teen, she was launched on a successful singing and behaving career, though she unequivocally gained recognition when she co-starred with Frankie Avalon in a array of “Beach Party” cinema in a mid-1960s.

In 1992, Annette announced she had MS.

Funicello was married to her initial husband, Jack Gilardi, from 1965 until 1981, and had 3 children. In 1986, she married California strap racing equine breeder/trainer Glen Holt.

The 4-year-old child who scarcely drowned on a Disney Fantasy journey boat Mar 30 might face “extensive mind damage” though his parents, helped by their faith, sojourn confident their small “warrior” will continue to recover, according to several social-media sites.

“We really feel your prayers and know that God is with us,” his relatives wrote on CaringBridge, a site to share personal health news. “We have a conflict to quarrel here!”

The boy, identified on a sites as Chase Lykken of Minnesota, was airlifted from a boat after being pulled from a pool shortly after his family boarded a Fantasy for a seven-day cruise.

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  Disney Fantasy boat earnings to Port Canaveral after medical emergencies

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  Disney Fantasy: Boy, 4, still hospitalized after being pulled from Disney journey boat pool

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  Disney Fantasy: Boy, 4, airlifted after being pulled from Disney cruise-ship pool

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Authorities have not reliable a boy’s identity, though a CaringBridge biography and a Facebook page — both started within a few days of a collision — as good as a family member’s blog and online Disney summary play brand Chase as a child found nonchalant in a boat pool.

On a sites, his parents, identified as Chris and Lisa, have been detailing Chase’s diagnosis during Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children. They called a child “our Warrior Chaser” and common photos of a blond-haired boy, including one of him in a Captain America dress with his defense bearing outward.

Hundreds of people — some strangers to a family — have posted comments charity prayers and wish for a full recovery.

The relatives wrote Sunday of their struggles to understanding with potentially “crushing” news and pronounced tests after this week should let them know some-more about a mind repairs they fear. “Chase is here with us now … Lord for that we am grateful,” a father wrote on CaringBridge.

In an progressing post, they wrote that they were not certain how a collision happened though pronounced several “good Samaritans” helped Chase. “We appreciate those people from a bottom of a hearts for their prompt actions and but a doubt he would not be here right now but them. They are Chase’s angels!!!”

The Mar occurrence wasn’t a usually high-profile one to impact a Disney ship.

Saturday night, a Fantasy had to conduct behind to Port Canaveral shortly after environment journey when dual passengers — both with pre-existing conditions — suffered medical emergencies on board, officials said. The boat after set journey again for a seven-day cruise.

Desiree Stennett of a Sentinel staff contributed to this report. lpostal@tribune.com or 407-420-5273

And here we suspicion this Sunday dusk was going to be a good pacific dusk examination a premiere of Mad Men!!

Turns out, a boys of The Wanted and One Direction had something a small some-more sinister planned…. Well, a integrate disobedient boys in particular, that is!

The Wanted’s Tom Parker started a Twitter argument only a small while ago when he threw some shade during Louis Tomlinson with this small suacy twitter after Louis apparently talked some shiz about them during their London gig a night before:

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[Image around FayesVision/WENN/Twitter.]

That is changing. As partial of a wide-ranging bid to find new hits, ABC is looking to a Magic Kingdom for firepower.

Among ABC’s 24 pilots for a subsequent radio deteriorate is a play formed on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, a Disneyland drum coaster. Another pilot, “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” is formed on subordinate characters from “The Avengers,” that final year took in $1.5 billion during a tellurian box bureau for Marvel Entertainment, a Disney unit. And “Once: Wonderland,” a spinoff of “Once Upon a Time,” a successful angel story radio array introduced in 2011, focuses on Alice and her pals.

“It seemed crazy to live within a walls of one of a best calm companies in a universe and not to be holding advantage of it,” pronounced Paul Lee, ABC’s boss of entertainment.

These efforts are usually in a commander stage, Mr. Lee cautioned, adding that he is not perplexing to spin ABC into a Disney Channel for adults; programs that sincerely trade on Disney stories could spin off ABC’s some-more worldly viewers. Harold L. Vogel, author of “Entertainment Industry Economics,” pronounced Mr. Lee also faces pushback from TV producers who competence rebel during “importing concepts from elsewhere in a corporation.” But if a judgment works, ABC’s ratings troubles could palliate or even reverse. Mr. Lee would also benefit domestic collateral within a company: Robert A. Iger, Disney’s arch executive, has done cross-company team-work and authorization enlargement a concentration of his reign.

For a deteriorate to date, and including sports, ABC ranks final among a Big Four promote networks in a advertiser-friendly demographic of adults 18 to 49. The network’s prime-time line-up has captivated an normal of 2.9 million viewers in that age bracket, a 4 percent decrease from a same duration final year, according to Nielsen.

Sports-heavy NBC and Fox both arrange somewhat forward of ABC by this measure, yet both have had steeper year-on-year declines. CBS, bolstered by a Super Bowl, ranks No. 1, with an normal of 3.8 million adults 18 to 49.

ABC has a strengths — a immeasurable grade of family co-viewing is one, a strike sitcom “Modern Family” is another — but, like all broadcasters, it has struggled to find new dermatitis hits and has a singular selling budget. Mr. Lee hopes to improved use Disney’s immeasurable sovereignty to get people to notice his new programs. “Once Upon a Time,” for instance, has been advertised on a Disney Cruise line, and costumes from a array have been exhibited during Disney parks.

“Big Thunder” comes from Melissa Rosenberg, a writer-producer who is best famous for her work on a “Twilight” film series. Mr. Lee described it as “a stone ’n’ hurl western” — in a suggestion if not in tangible strain — about a male who moves to a mining city with his bum son, whose health starts to mysteriously improve.

ABC and Marvel have kept a parsimonious lid on “S.H.I.E.L.D.,” though a commander was destined and co-written by Joss Whedon, who also destined “The Avengers” and is famous to TV fans as a force behind “Buffy a Vampire Slayer.” The “S.H.I.E.L.D.” project, that got a start when Mr. Iger privately suggested that ABC take a demeanour during it, focuses on spies who manage superhero margin operations.

Mr. Lee’s hunt for programming with some-more Disney DNA comes as ABC shares some-more talent with a renouned wire cousin, ABC Family. Joey Lawrence of a ABC Family array “Melissa Joey,” for instance, has doubled as a horde of “Splash,” a diving foe existence show, on ABC this spring.

Disney is shutting down LucasArts, builder of Star Wars video games, such as 1313.

Fresh off a acquisition of LucasFilms, Disney is shuttering LucasArts, a company’s video diversion division.

As initial reported by Game Informer, Disney skeleton to take a many franchises underneath LucasArts’ control and permit them to third-party diversion developers. LucasFilm pronounced it would lay off workers “across a organization” as a result.

LucasArts is best famous for a work in a 1990s, including many, many Star Wars games (Rebel Assault, Super Star Wars, Rogue Squadron) and a innovative Adventure games (Maniac Mansion, The Secret of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango). But a association has taken a backseat as of late, dropping usually a integrate of new Star Wars titles, Lego-ized versions of Star Wars and Indiana Jones games, a reboot of a Monkey Island franchise.

All were good, though nothing reached a heights of a studio’s prior work.

“After evaluating a position in a games market, we’ve motionless to change LucasArts from an inner growth to a chartering model, minimizing a company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of peculiarity Star Wars games,” a association pronounced in a statement.

Disney (DIS, Fortune 500) bought LucasFilms in Oct for $4 billion, creation Lucasfilm owners George Lucas a poignant shareholder in a media giant.

If a suspicion of a vacation that involves a certain larger-than-life rodent leaves we with not-so-magical thoughts of a decimated bank account, consider again. Disney World is distant some-more affordable than we competence think.

As a mom of 7 who’s visited (with several kids during a time) during slightest half a dozen times, I’ve schooled some budget-crunching tips and found by hearing and blunder what’s value splurging on. Here, 15 tips from an unapologetic penny pincher on how a family can do Disney but violation a bank.

1. Stay on a property. Booking a room right during a Disney review creates a many clarity given you’ll spend extremely reduction time removing in and out of a parks than if we stay outward a park. And there are bargains to be had. In fact, Disney’s budget-priced hotels are fun, gentle and filled with special small touches. At a Art of Animation, where bedrooms start during about $100 per night, we can also get a family apartment in themes like Finding Nemo for around $249 per night. The Pop Century Resort, where bedrooms start during $112.50, is a salute to a fads of a 1950s by 1990s (the 1960s territory is endorsed since you’re tighten to a food justice and train stop to a parks).

If we can compensate somewhat more, another personal favorite is Port Orleans, a tolerably labelled review (rooms start during $191) meant to demeanour like New Orleans’ French Quarter. Lively jazz plays in a open areas, there’s a fanciful Mardi Gras-themed pool, and early dusk walks along magnolia blossom-perfumed cobblestone streets are memorable.

2. Give it some suspicion before shopping a Park Hopper sheet (which gives we opening to a parks for several days for a prosaic rate). Consider that on during slightest one of your Disney days, a kids might only as shortly loll around a pool and chill out. If we have a Park Hopper, we feel compelled to strike a parks each day.

3. Fastpasses are good to take advantage of for a many renouned rides since they can save we watchful in line. At a float we want, ensue to a Fastpass kiosk, insert your park ticket, and get a sheet behind along with a trip of paper that tells we when to return. Typically, we have a window of event of about an hour to lapse to that ride.

4. While Fastpasses are great, don’t rubbish time removing one for shows hold in theaters that chair hundreds, or for rides with a wait time of reduction than 20 minutes. Once we get a Fastpass for a sold attraction, we can’t get another one until a lapse time has upheld for a initial attraction.

5. Take advantage of a new system, Fastpass+, that is enclosed in a park acknowledgment and creates it easier than ever to maximize a series of rides you’ll go on. Choose rides on a “My Disney Experience” website before we leave home. Besides rides, we now can even haven firework and march observation areas, Disney Character Greetings, and several shows.

A meet-and-greet with Winnie-the-Pooh is a prominence for a author’s daughter Mia Lopez.

6. When your kids constantly get sleepy in a afternoon and start impending a meltdown indicate where they desire for pricey treats and merchandise, don’t give in. Instead, conduct behind to your hotel. While a kids chill out in a pool or take a nap, we get a timeout as well. By a time you’re all prepared to conduct behind to a parks, you’re feeling rejuvenated and in a most improved support of mind than when we left.

At a new eventuality for Disney Infinity we had a tighten adult demeanour during a Toy Box mode. This is a apportionment of a diversion that my kids are many vehement about as they can brew adult a opposite franchises and emanate their possess games.

The knowledge of formulating a diversion is not hugely separate to Little Big Planet, nonetheless here some-more has been finished to support for a family gaming audience. Players are postulated entrance to a opposite objects, characters and vehicles of a game, as good as a extensive proof origination complement and can emanate their possess games.

This extends over a play character that a categorical adventures yield as a collection can be used to emanate sports, racing and even plan games with a Disney characters and objects. The favorite aspect of all this for me was that we can do it collaboratively — possibly with dual people locally or 4 people online. It will be engaging to see if this collaborative aspect of a diversion extends to a Wii chronicle in further to a some-more absolute 360, PS3 and Wii U games.

Players can also place Tokens, collected from a sell foil packs, on a Infinity bottom to entrance new vehicles, powers and objects. This is an engaging aspect of a diversion as it extends a earthy component over what has now been announced for Skylanders Giants or Skylanders Swap Force.

Manfred Neber of Avalanche Software

James Rowe of Avalanche Software

The Disney Fantasy journey boat had to conduct behind to Port Canaveral shortly after environment journey Saturday night when dual passengers suffered medical emergencies on board, officials said.

A 6-year-old child with diabetes had to be taken to a sanatorium for treatment. Also, a 77-year-old male with a heart condition was hospitalized after angry of chest pains, pronounced Rosalind Harvey, mouthpiece for a Port Canaveral Police Department.

The boat primarily left a wharf during about 5 p.m. though docked again during about 8:30 p.m. to get medical courtesy for a dual passengers’ pre-existing conditions.

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  Disney Fantasy: Boy, 4, still hospitalized after being pulled from Disney journey boat pool

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The boat has given set journey again to take a other passengers on their seven-day Caribbean cruise, a Disney mouthpiece said.

dstennett@tribune.com or 407-420-5447