Talk:Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Saban Properties / BVS Entertainment
Buena Vista Apparently owns the rights to a great many of the re-dubbed Saban Projects. I wish everyone would call them @ 1-800-477-2811 and request that the Saban Properties be re-released in some form. They Bought Saban Entertainment and now own the rights to the distribution of a great many shows that may never see the light of day again unless someone calls them and says "hey, you guys need to stop being so boneheaded and release this stuff, you could make ".

Per the Saban Article, the wing of Buena Vista that houses what was once Saban Entertainment is called "BVS Entertainment".

I know Maple Town, Maya the Bee, Mysterious Cities of Gold, And Noozles are under the ownership of BVS. I wish I could find out what else has disappeared down the figurative rabbit hole into the dark recesses of the corporate behemoth that is Buena Vista / Disney.

Christ, why did this stuff have to end up in the hands of the corporate jerkwads who will likely never allow it to see the light of day again ;_; —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.7.43.142 (talk • contribs) 17:13, 19 April 2006

Buena Vista becomes Walt Disney
Disney changed the name of all Buena Vista business units six months ago. Currently all of BVPD and BVI are divisions of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, the umbrella name for a number of studio depts under Dick Cook. I'm really surprised that no one has changed this. 69.231.225.204 (talk) 05:45, 7 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, it's all set now. jhawkinson (talk) 02:13, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Relevance of Franchises Section
Is the franchises section of this article relevant to explaining what Walt Disney Motion Pictures does? In addition. this section cites no sources. Should this section be deleted?

Of course NOT, besides what is up with removing something if that's the company's main franchises?--DisneyGirlovestacos1995 (talk) 23:12, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Tarzan no more?
I'm so disappointed that Tarzan is no longer in Disney, how did this happen?!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.3.178.57 (talk) 15:15, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
 * What do you mean? Trivialist (talk) 01:53, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Franchise relevance
Is a table listing the studio's film franchises relevant?

There's already a section regarding the topic on this talk page, but I've decided to start anew and assess this critical issue. This discussion also applies to the same issue at 20th Century Fox (and any other studio articles for that matter), but I've concentrated the discussion here because of the higher frequency in edit warring and to avoid creating two, separate discussions. For now, I would argue against including the content for the following reasons:

1. Adhering to Policy — The current edits that have added the content have been unreferenced and are therefore unverified, which goes against Wikipedia's core policies of verifiability and abstaining from including original research.

2. Arbitrary nature — The information is arbitrary and leads to questions like; ''What constitutes a media franchise? Do we include every franchise the studio has done, both widely known and less-known, or one over the other? Are dormant/future franchises part of the list too? What about franchises that only have one film but have a larger presence in other forms of media that are unrelated to the studio, like merchandising, television and theme parks?'' In shorter terms, where do we draw the line in the sand?

3. Notability — Does the content meet notability guidelines or is it irrelevant and trivial?

Please note, that if those problems can be addressed and solved, then I'd support incorporating the content. ~ Jedi94  ( talk ) 21:43, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I think the list does have a place in the article but only for major partners involved. Don't forget the article is about a distribution company, so films it distributes are an important piece of knowledge. Most of the current list items are notable companies with notable involvement so they can stay. However you can remove the producer/distribution deals, it is getting a bit trivial. There is definitely need for more references on the list itself and finding sources to verify the contents of the list could realistically be done.

So keep to current/former units with more references but remove the producer/distributions deals. EvilKeyboardCat (talk) 09:44, 8 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Agree with EvilKeyboardCat. References need to be added to verify the list's contents. It would be ideal to find a reliable source that already has some form of this list, rather than editors putting together a list using references for individual items on the list and potentially creating an original research issue. Eidolonic (talk) 14:06, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

RfC:"Distributed by" v. "Studio"
Please note: I've abbreviated Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures as WDSMP and Buena Vista Pictures Distribution as BVPD for the purposes of brevity.

I feel as though I have to address two issues that are becoming apparent in several Disney film articles, involving the Studio and Distributed by parameters found in the infoboxes for Disney films. I've come across several articles that identity either a film label/imprint/banner (i.e. Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, or Hollywood Pictures etc.) as the film's distributor whereas other articles identify WDSMP or BVPD (depending on the year) as distributor, despite the fact that all of Disney's films are distributed by the latter, as the former ones are imprints/labels/banners. Thus the first key issue is this: Who do we indicate as distributor? WDSMP/BVPD? Or its various labels/imprints/banners? For the sake of argument, if we decide on the former, then where do we list all of the labels/imprints/banners? In the studio parameter? Or do we just double stuff the distributor parameter?

Addressing that concern, brings forth the second issue which is article consistency. If we do decide on what goes in what parameter, then we must enforce that rule-of-thumb on all articles and not just a collective few, which is what I've been noticing. For example, The Nightmare Before Christmas now lists BVPD as distributor and Touchstone as the studio, whereas My Father the Hero (a film from roughly the same timeframe), has Touchstone as distributor and nothing in the studio field, despite that they're both distributed by WDSMP/BVPD. In basic terms, many of the related film articles are just inconsistent with one another.

I have two solutions that I'd like to bring to the table. A. We identify the distributor as one of the film labels/imprints/banners and disregard WDSMP/BVPD completely, since its role in distribution is already implied with the film label (exempting Disney's Marvel Studios releases). B. We only include WDSMP/BVPD in the distribution parameter and all the various film labels/imprints/banners would fall under the studio parameter alongside any other production companies.

What are your thoughts on addressing this issue? ~ Jedi94  ( talk ) 21:22, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
 * At one point, each of BV, Touchstone, Hollywood and Miramax had their own distribution capability (not sure about Disney Pictures). Later the film units were force to operate closer and unified their distribution arm under BVPD (except for Miramax until near the end of its Disney ownership). Spshu (talk) 20:11, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * So...what do we do about it? ~ Jedi94  ( talk ) 20:17, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I support Jedi94's statements and I think "Solution A" would work best for me. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 20:17, 6 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment I think there are two separate issues here. You have to separate "imprints" from revisionism i.e. the purpose of the infobox is to record the bibliographic information about the film. For instance, United Artists used to distribute the James Bond films, and then it was taken over by MGM but that doesn't mean we should start adding MGM to all the James Bond film articles i.e. Dr No was distributed by United Artists, so that is what it should say, regardless of who owns it now. Then you have imprints, which are when a company makes or releases a film under a different division/branding, for example "Touchstone Pictures". It is common in book publishing to list both the publisher and the imprint (see MLA example), so that analogy could be used in film articles i.e. Touchstone (The Walt Disney Company) — incidentally this is how the AFI present the information for The Nightmare Before Christmas. But you have to be careful to avoid original research in these cases, because apart from the most highly publicised cases such as Disney's Touchstone or Buena Vista labels, in many cases it will be often unclear when something is a branding or a subsidiary, and if something is a subsidiary then it is not an imprint. The easiest way to approach this I think is to simply follow what the sources say: the AFI list Touchstone as the production company and Buena Vista as the distributor for both The Nightmare Before Christmas, and this is also the case for My Father the Hero. The Nightmare Before Christmas was also submitted to the MPAA by Disney using its Buena Vista arm for its MPAA rating. Betty Logan (talk) 22:57, 6 May 2013 (UTC)


 * In retrospect, I realized that I forgot to mention that I'm also inclined towards "Solution A" as being the best option. In regard to Betty Logan's comment - if we follow that route, then what would do for the studio and distributor parameters for such films from, let's say, Pixar? (While still staying true to Disney's film labels, that is.) ~ Jedi94  ( talk ) 23:20, 6 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, the AFI always supply a list of the production companies and the distributor so in what sense is that not sufficient for what we need? If you take the Toy Story films for example, the AFI, MPAA and BBFC state that Buena Vista is the distributor for the first two films, while for the third they all state it is WDSMP (AFO, MPAA, BBFC). For the production companies, the AFI lists Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures for the first two and just Pixar for the third one . There are plenty of sources around that list the production companies and distributors and all we should be doing is following them. Betty Logan (talk) 00:47, 7 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I think Solution A is the best course of action. It feels more inclusive and overall makes more sense to me. Celestial Reader (talk) 19:23, 7 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The core principal of Wikipedia is WP:Verifiability. That means editors shouldn't be determining which companies/brands are credited with producing/distributing the film from their own personal knowledge or research of corporate infrastructure. If secondary sources credit a particular company then that is what Wikipedia should be doing. Betty Logan (talk) 19:28, 7 May 2013 (UTC)


 * That is correct. However, this isn't conjecture, we know exactly what the studio is, and who the distributor is. The issue is how we are going to list it, correct? I feel like Solution A just makes more sense than solution B. It's not like solution A will have false information, It's a more specific route than just listing WDSMP or BVPD. Celestial Reader (talk) 19:50, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Neither solution is really acceptable if it puts us at odds with other secondary sources and database entries, and both are entirely acceptable if they are consistent with them. In the case of A Nightmare Before Christmas, sources credit the production company as Touchstone and Buena Vista as the distributor, so why would we need to deviate from that? In the case of the Toy Story films what is the problem with simply emulating the AFI? This is a solution without a problem IMO. Betty Logan (talk) 21:09, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Both solutions are the same since they just serve in different contexts and both can be feasible, provided that we're not misinforming readers with original research or anything of the sort. As of now, Solution A seems to be the majority though. But, I do want to dignify Betty's point that we can enact Solution B only if we can find consistent sources for all of Disney's films. For instance, the AFI/Toy Story example seems a bit dodgy since we know Walt Disney Pictures was involved in some sort of capacity with the third film (despite no mention of it by the AFI), but AFI isn't the only source out there and if we can find other reputable ones we might be home free. ~ Jedi94  ( talk ) 22:41, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

What about Disney's Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas?
Disney's Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas is not a feature film theatrically release, it's a direct-to-video. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.147.198.171 (talk) 00:04, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Actors and actress in invidual movies distributed by Buena Vista and W.D.S.M.P.
What is the actors and actress in invidual movies distributed by Buena Vista and W.D.S.M.P.? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.217.17.15 (talk) 21:05, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

What about R-rated Disney film by the MPAA?
All those R-rated Disney films by the MPAA are produced by Touchstone Pictures banner.

No children without their parents. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.51.84.128 (talk) 03:27, 9 September 2015 (UTC)