Latest news with #WinorLose
Newsweek
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsweek
Baseball Team Sues Disney For Trademark Infringement
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The Portland Pickles, an amateur summer-league team for collegiate baseball players, might not make a lot of noise in their 17-team league this season. They've already made noise in court. More news: Viral Clip Shows Pope Leo XIV On Camera During the 2005 World Series In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the Pickles accused Disney of violating trademark law by appropriating their mascot, logo, and merchandise design in an animated series, Win or Lose, on Disney+. The series centers around a fictitious co-ed softball team named "The Pickles." General views of Walt Disney Studios and The Walt Disney Company corporate headquarters on December 13, 2023 in Burbank, California. General views of Walt Disney Studios and The Walt Disney Company corporate headquarters on December 13, 2023 in Burbank, California. AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court of Oregon and provided to Newsweek Sports, names The Walt Disney Company and Disney Enterprises, Inc. as defendants. More news: Upset Red Sox Star Unloads on Executive "As explained in the lawsuit recently filed against Disney, the Portland Pickles are taking action to eliminate confusion in the marketplace caused by unauthorized use of our trademarked logos on merchandise," the team said in a statement. "Fueled by incredible support from our fans and community members from all walks of life, we felt we had no choice but to protect our rights—not just for ourselves, but on behalf of the little guy. We may not have limitless resources, but we have something equally powerful: an unwavering belief in defending what we've created and a determination to prevent our creative marks from being exploited without consequence." Win or Lose is Pixar's first-ever original long-form animated series. It follows the Pickles, a co-ed middle school softball team, throughout the week as they prepare for their upcoming championship game. More news: Disney Introduces Christian Character After Ditching Transgender Story Each episode focuses on a different character and their life off the field. The series premiered on Disney+ on February 19. The Portland Pickles' 18-page lawsuit accuses Disney of "leveraging their outsized market power to appropriate a brand identity with a decade of goodwill and fan devotion behind it." More news: Pitcher Plays Catch With Fan in New York's Central Park Attorneys for the team are seeking unspecified damages and a judge's order banning Disney from using their name in the show or on merchandise. Disney has licensed the logo for the Peaks Valley Pickles of Win or Lose fame on T-shirts that feature a smiling green pickle logo. The plaintiff in the case is Rose City Baseball LLC, the operator of the Portland Pickles. For more sports news, visit Newsweek Sports.
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Disney releases Pixar show with Christian character after dropping transgender storyline: report
A new animated series from Disney-owned Pixar, "Win or Lose," features a character who makes a Christian prayer. Original plans to have a transgender character in the same show were scrapped. The first episode in the new series, "Coach's Kid," shows "Laurie" bowing her head in prayer ahead of a game, according to The Christian Post. "Dear Heavenly Father, please give me strength … I just want to catch a ball or get a hit," Laurie says in the scene. "I promise I'll be good, and I, uh, won't do that thing again." Disney Drops Transgender Storyline From Upcoming Animated Pixar Show 'Win Or Lose' Laurie also prays in another scene during the episode: "Please help me be good. I'm gonna train so hard." Pixar Animation Studios' "Win or Lose" "follows a co-ed middle-school softball team named the Pickles in the week leading up to their championship softball game," according to The Hollywood Reporter (THR), which first broke the news about the changes made to the show. Read On The Fox News App The show, which premiered in February, made headlines late last year after Disney revealed that it dropped a transgender storyline before release. "A source close to Win or Lose said the studio made the decision to alter course several months ago," THR reported. As 'Snow White' Struggles, Here Are Five More Disney Controversies That Rocked The Company A spokesperson for the media company said in a statement that the changes were made in deference to parents who would prefer to address those sorts of topics with their children on their own. "When it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline," a Disney spokesperson told Fox News Digital in December about the changes made to the show. Disney did not immediately respond to an additional request for comment from Fox News Digital. Fox News' Kristine Parks and Gabriel Hays contributed to this article source: Disney releases Pixar show with Christian character after dropping transgender storyline: report
Fox News
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Disney releases Pixar show with Christian character after dropping transgender storyline: report
A new animated series from Disney-owned Pixar, "Win or Lose," features a character who makes a Christian prayer. Original plans to have a transgender character in the same show were scrapped. The first episode in the new series, "Coach's Kid," shows "Laurie" bowing her head in prayer ahead of a game, according to The Christian Post. "Dear Heavenly Father, please give me strength … I just want to catch a ball or get a hit," Laurie says in the scene. "I promise I'll be good, and I, uh, won't do that thing again." Laurie also prays in another scene during the episode: "Please help me be good. I'm gonna train so hard." Pixar Animation Studios' "Win or Lose" "follows a co-ed middle-school softball team named the Pickles in the week leading up to their championship softball game," according to The Hollywood Reporter (THR), which first broke the news about the changes made to the show. The show, which premiered in February, made headlines late last year after Disney revealed that it dropped a transgender storyline before release. "A source close to Win or Lose said the studio made the decision to alter course several months ago," THR reported. A spokesperson for the media company said in a statement that the changes were made in deference to parents who would prefer to address those sorts of topics with their children on their own. "When it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline," a Disney spokesperson told Fox News Digital in December about the changes made to the show. Disney did not immediately respond to an additional request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Los Angeles Times
11-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
In Trump's second term, Hollywood sweeps DEI efforts under the rug
It only took five years for Hollywood to back track on its big diversity push after the racial reckoning that followed George Floyd's murder by police in Minneapolis. In the weeks since President Trump retook office, entertainment and media companies, like much of corporate America, have quickly moved to water down and dismantle efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion — or DEI — both internally and in the content they produce. This comes after Trump in January issued an executive order that tasked the U.S. attorney general with going after private-sector DEI programs that, in his view, constitute illegal discrimination based on race and sex. Not long after that, the Federal Communications Commission, led by Trump-appointed chairman Brendan Carr, launched a probe into NBCUniversal owner Comcast Corp. to 'root out' such initiatives. As all this took shape, Paramount Global dropped staffing goals related to gender, race, ethnicity and sex; Warner Bros. Discovery rebranded its DEI activities as simply 'inclusion'; and Walt Disney Co. scrapped a 'diversity and inclusion' performance standard used to calculate executive compensation. Meanwhile, Disney continued to shift gears in the culture war, removing a trans athlete storyline from its Pixar animated series 'Win or Lose.' As my colleague Samantha Masunaga wrote recently, this backpedaling has been going on for quite some time. Although diversity initiatives aren't perfect, advocates for greater inclusion worry that gutting them will result in fewer opportunities for people of color. In 2023, a raft of high-level media and entertainment executives in charge of diversity efforts resigned or were pushed out, leading experts to worry that the businesses' goals to make themselves more inclusive were just a passing fad. For companies, the writing has been on the wall since the U.S. Supreme Court gutted race-based affirmative action in college admissions. Indeed, a recent study examining the highest-grossing films of 2024 determined that studios have started to backslide on representation when it comes to race. Actors of color accounted for 25.2% of lead roles in the top theatrical films of 2024, down from 29.2% in 2023, according to the most recent UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report. The number of films directed by people of color also dropped in 2024 compared with 2023. Directors of color accounted for 20.2% of 2024 movies, down from 22.9% for the prior year. People of color account for about 44% of the U.S. population. On the corporate side, the rate of reduction in DEI roles in the film and TV industry outpaced the general decrease in employment, according to a review by workforce database company Revelio Labs, which tabulated jobs at Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Universal Studios and Amazon Studios. The DEI flashpoint is just one front in Trump's ongoing fight with mainstream media institutions, which are trying to combat and cope with an ongoing erosion in audience levels and trust. Trump is suing CBS News over edits to its '60 Minutes' interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. The FCC is probing the network over the same issue. CBS and its parent company Paramount are fighting both battles on 1st Amendment grounds. Paramount's controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, has agitated for a settlement to help move along the company's pending merger with David Ellison's Skydance Media. But as tempting as it is to blame Trump for the shift, there are a variety of factors at play. The backlash against companies doing anything 'woke' exploded into the open as Disney feuded with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over anti-LGBTQ+ legislation governing schools and conservatives boycotted Bud Light over its social media activation with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Much of the entertainment sector has gone through a significant economic retrenchment after years of overspending during the so-called streaming wars, and diversity initiatives are often among the first things cut in such situations. That's despite the fact the executives often tout diversity and representation as being good for business. The most cynical take is that the studios were never all that serious about diversity, equity and inclusion to begin with, even amid the fervent calls for racial justice that broke out in 2020 with protests sweeping the U.S. The people and programs put in place to advance such goals weren't given the authority necessary to produce real change. The most generous reading is that many of the recent changes that the companies have made to their internal policies are surface-level. Karen Horne, who previously oversaw DEI efforts at Warner Bros. Discovery, told The Times that many companies 'are still doing the work, they're just not being as loud about it. They're just doing it quietly.' On the flip side, studios are not being shy about trying to cater more to red-state viewers in light of the country's cultural shift. This goes beyond avoiding critique of the Trump administration or highlighting topics that provoke the ire of conservatives, as outlets including The Times and the Wall Street Journal have pointed out. A&E has announced a 'Duck Dynasty' revival. Amazon on Monday said it's bringing episodes of Trump's reality show 'The Apprentice' to Prime Video. 'Shifting Gears,' the latest sitcom from Trump admirer Tim Allen, is a hit for Disney-owned ABC. In the Trump era, as in any other, Hollywood is going back to what it already knows how to do. Elon Musk's feud with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, explained. The Tesla and X chief's legal dispute against OpenAI could affect the future of one of the most prominent leaders in artificial intelligence. Paramount says Trump's CBS '60 Minutes' lawsuit seeks to 'punish' network. The media company on Thursday asked a federal judge in Texas to dismiss the $20-billion lawsuit. Paramount separately has agreed to have a mediator look at the case as it tries to complete its merger with Skydance. Oscars 2025 surprise: Viewership up slightly from last year at 19.7 million. The availability of the 97th Academy Awards on streaming platform Hulu likely added younger viewers to the telecast. Layoffs hit ABC News and Disney's entertainment TV channels. The Walt Disney Co.-owned news and entertainment divisions are cutting 6% of their workforce. Data journalism unit 538 is shuttered. ICYMI: Bong Joon Ho's 'Mickey 17,' his follow-up to the best picture-winning 'Parasite,' opened with a sluggish $19.1 million in the U.S. and Canada, for a global gross of $53.3 million. That's a poor result, considering its production budget was $118 million, which doesn't count marketing expenses. The film is yet another example of the challenges of launching a big-budget high-concept sci-fi without established intellectual property attached ('Mickey 17' is based on a 2022 novel, but this isn't exactly 'The Da Vinci Code.') The movie earned decent reviews from critics but a less promising 'B' grade from CinemaScore, which doesn't bode well for this Warner Bros. release. 'Bluey' is a boon for Disney+. During her talk at last week's Morgan Stanley investor conference, Disney entertainment co-chair Dana Walden noted that the beloved Australian kids program was the most streamed show of 2024 on U.S. televisions. Americans streamed 55.6 billion minutes of the show last year. As LightShed analyst Rich Greenfield recently pointed out, 'Bluey' accounts for a substantial amount of the traffic on Disney+. Keep in mind, though, that Disney doesn't actually own the show; it licenses 'Bluey' from BBC Studios, which handles distribution rights. Queensland-based Ludo Studio produces the Joe Brumm-created series. But Disney is certainly doing what it can to capitalize on the success. A 'Bluey' feature film is headed to theaters in 2027. Last week, local on-location production was still down significantly from the same period of time in 2024. Read and watch: The Times' interview with comedian Andrew Schulz about his new Netflix special, 'Life.' Read: Smart take on Joan Didion's relationship with Hollywood.
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Daredevil: Born Again' Becomes Disney+'s Biggest Premiere of 2025 With 7.5 Million Views
'Daredevil: Born Again' scored the biggest premiere audience Disney+ has seen this year. After launching with the first two episodes on Tuesday, March 4, the 'Daredevil: Born Again' premiere scored 7.5 million views globally in its first five days of streaming on Disney+, according to internal streaming figures from Disney. Disney defines a view as total stream time divided by runtime. The Marvel Television show now ranks as the most-watched premiere on Disney+ in 2025 so far. Notable shows that have also premiered on the streamer in 2025 include 'Goosebumps: The Vanishing,' 'A Real Bug's Life' Season 2, 'Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man' and 'Win or Lose,' among others. In September, the premiere episode of Marvel Television's 'Agatha All Along' scored 9.3 million views on Disney+ within a week on the streamer, though that measurement includes two more days than the viewing figures for the 'Daredevil: Born Again' premiere. Still, premiere viewership for 'Daredevil: Born Again' was surpassed by 'The Acolyte,' which reached 11.1 million views within its first five days of streaming on Disney+. However, 'Daredevil: Born Again' did outpace viewership for 'Inside Out' spinoff series 'Dream Productions,' which scored 5.6 million viewers on Disney+ in its first five days of streaming. Charlie Cox stars as Matt Murdock/Daredevil in 'Daredevil: Born Again' alongside Vincent D'Onofrio, Deborah Ann Woll, Jon Bernthal, Elden Henson and Ayelet Zurer, among others. After debuting its first two episodes on March 4, 'Daredevil: Born Again' will debut one episode weekly for the next two weeks on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET before releasing Episodes 5 and 6 together. Then, the show will move back to debuting one episode every week before airing its finale (Episode 9) on April 15. The post 'Daredevil: Born Again' Becomes Disney+'s Biggest Premiere of 2025 With 7.5 Million Views appeared first on TheWrap.
