Disney This Week: Beauty and the Beast & More!

Disney This Week: December 30, 2016 – January 6, 2017

Welcome to another edition of our new regular weekly feature Disney This Week here at ComingSoon.net. We’re rounding up the latest news on all things Disney, including movies, TV, Blu-ray/DVD, theme parks, fan art and Disney history. Let us know what you like or want to see more out of in Disney This Week in the comments below! Now let’s kick off the new year…

RELATED: Star Wars News: Rogue One VFX, Episodes VIII & IX, and More!


Movies

New Beauty and the Beast TV Spot Revealed by Disney

The Walt Disney Studios has started airing a new Beauty and the Beast TV spot, which you can watch in the player below!

New Beauty and the Beast Footage in Latest TV Spot

While The Walt Disney Studios has not brought this TV spot online officially yet, you can check out new Beauty and the Beast footage in the player below!

Hear Emma Watson Sing Something There from Beauty and the Beast!

The Walt Disney Studios has brought online a snippet from “Something There” from Beauty and the Beast in which you can hear Emma Watson sing! Check out the audio snippet in the player below!

Meet Two New Cars 3 Characters

Ahead of the new trailer debut this coming Monday, January 9, Disney•Pixar has revealed two new Cars 3 characters: Jackson Storm (voiced by Armie Hammer) and Cruz Ramirez (voiced by Cristela Alonzo). You can view videos of the Cars 3 characters (including Owen Wilson’s Lightning McQueen) below.

New Cars 3 Trailer Coming on January 9

Disney•Pixar teased that a new Cars 3 trailer will air during the college football national championship game between Alabama and Clemson on Monday, January 9 on ESPN at 8 pm/ET. You can watch a recorded tease for the new Cars 3 trailer below.

New Pirates of the Caribbean 5 Synopsis Teases a New Ship for Jack Sparrow

Walt Disney Pictures has revealed an all-new synopsis for the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, teasing the film’s central plot as well as the return of some fan-favorite characters. It reads as follows:

Johnny Depp returns to the big screen as the iconic, swashbuckling anti-hero Jack Sparrow in the all-new “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.” The rip-roaring adventure finds down-on-his-luck Captain Jack feeling the winds of ill-fortune blowing strongly his way when deadly ghost sailors, led by the terrifying Captain Salazer (Javier Bardem), escape from the Devil’s Triangle bent on killing every pirate at sea – notably Jack. Jack’s only hope of survival lies in the legendary Trident of Poseidon, but to find it he must forge an uneasy alliance with Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario), a brilliant and beautiful astronomer, and Henry (Benton Thwaites), a headstrong young sailor in the Royal Navy. At the helm of the Dying Gull, his pitifull small and shabby ship, Captain Jack seeks not only to reverse his recent spate of ill fortune, but to save his very life from the most formidable and malicious foe he has never faced. “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” also stars Kevin R. McNally as Joshamee Gibbs, Golshifteh Farahani as the sea-witch Shansa, David Wenham as Scarfield, Stephen Graham as Scrum, and Geoffrey Rush as Captain Hector Barbossa.


TV

Obi-Wan is Back in Star Wars Rebels Season 3 Trailer!

Star Wars Rebels Season 3 makes its mid-season premiere this coming Saturday, January 7 (8:30-9:30 p.m. EST) on Disney XD, and they’ve just revealed the full trailer which includes an appearance by none other than Obi-Wan Kenobi… against an old nemesis! Forest Whitaker will also reprise his role as Saw Gerrera in the two-part premiere episode “Ghosts of Geonosis, Parts One and Two.” Check out the new Star Wars Rebels Season 3 mid-season trailer below!

Watch the Saw Gerrera Rebels Episode Trailer

Academy Award-winning actor Forest Whitaker, who stars as Rebel freedom fighter Saw Gerrera in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, will join the cast of the hit animated series Star Wars Rebels, which is set in a time period just prior to the events of Rogue One. Whitaker will reprise his role as Saw Gerrera, providing the voice of the character as he makes his debut on “Ghosts of Geonosis, Parts One and Two” premiering Saturday, January 7 (8:30-9:30 p.m. EST), on Disney XD. Check out a new trailer for the Saw Gerrera Rebels episodes below!

Girl Meets World Cancelled by Disney Channel

Disney Channel has made it official: Girl Meets World has been cancelled after three seasons. The Friday, January 20 season finale will also serve as the series finale.

“In the episode, ‘Girl Meets Goodbye,’ the Matthews family contemplates a life-changing decision,” the network said. “We are proud that for over 70 episodes, Michael Jacobs, April Kelly and the talented creative team, cast and crew entertained viewers with an authentic and heartfelt look at navigating adolescence.”


Theme Parks


Toys


Fan Art of the Week

In tandem with this week’s Disney Vault item, we present this gorgeous piece of Princess Mononoke fan art by Indonesian artist Septimius Ferdian (a.k.a. Arcanedist). Check out his full gallery at this link!


This Week in Disney History

The first New Year’s Eve Party was held at Disneyland on December 31, 1957 with around 7,500 people in attendance.

This week in 1943 the anti-Nazi Donald Duck short film Der Fuehrer’s Face is released to theaters (the original title was “Donald Duck in Nutziland”). The classic Silly Symphony The Tortoise and the Hare was also released in 1935. The Disney Channel debuted the medieval adventure film Black Arrow starring Oliver Reed in 1985. In 2000, the sequel Fantasia 2000 opened at 70 IMAX theaters worldwide, becoming one of the first major studio films released in the format.

Disney Legend and artist Tyrus “Ty” Wong, who was key in developing the look of Bambi, passed away on December 30, 2016 at the age of 106.


Disney Vault

Each week we highlight an underappreciated Disney classic! This week we’re celebrating the 20th anniversary of Hayao Miyazaki’s 1997 animated masterpiece Princess Mononoke (“Mononoke-hime”), which was produced by Japan’s Studio Ghibli but English dubbed and distributed in the US by Disney. The story of a young prince who meets a warrior girl and gets involved in a primal battle between ancient forest gods and industrialists was at the time the highest-grossing movie in Japanese cinematic history, and was a major influence on the look and themes of James Cameron’s Avatar. It was also a watershed film for Miyazaki, as the Disney dub (translated by Neil Gaiman!) played a big role in popularizing the master animator’s prior and subsequent films in the States.

In honor of both its 20th anniversary and Miyazaki’s 76th birthday, GKids is re-releasing Princess Mononoke to U.S. cinemas in English-dub form on Monday, January 9 at 7:00pm. The celebration will include the never-before-released music video directed by Hayao Miyazaki titled “On Your Mark.” You can go to this link to purchase tickets through Fathom Events!

Click here to purchase Princess Mononoke on Disney Blu-ray, currently on sale for $14.99!

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