June 16th is a big day for the Jonas Brothers and their fans. It’s the release date of their album “Lines, Vines and Trying Times“.

The Disney Channel is celebrated their album release by making Tuesday, June 16th, “Jonas Day”. It includes three one-hour blocks (six episodes) of “JONAS,” plus music videos, a sneak peek at Jonas Brothers’ upcoming concert tour, and their Friday, June 12 performance of “Poison Ivy” and “Paranoid” on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Don’t forget to pick up your copy of Lines, Vines and Trying Times on June 16th!

“The Jonas Brothers World Tour 2009″ kicks-off on June 20 in Dallas, Texas.

Image Credit: Amazon.com

Disney is FULL of announcements today! First we hear that High School Musical 4 has a director, then we hear that they have ordered season four of Hannah Montana and now we know this…there will be a season 2 of “Sonny with a Chance”!

The show, which premiered in February, stars Demi Lovato, Tiffany Thornton, Sterling Knight, Brandon Mychal Smith, Doug Brochu and Allisyn Ashley Arm. It has received some great ratings and audiences definitely love the show.

Gary Marsh had this to say about this announcement: “’Sonny’ was a hit right out of the gate, thanks in no small part to the stratospheric trajectory of our newest star, Demi Lovato. She and the entire talented cast, along with our gifted writing and producing teams, have turned ‘Sonny With A Chance’ into ‘destination television’ for kids everywhere. We thrilled with the direction this first season has taken, and look forward to tapping further into its comedic potential, adding music and more, in Season Two.”

Also, the fictionalized tween magazine “Tween Weekly” seen in the series has successfully crossed over into the digital world at www.TweenWeekly.com. The site features articles, interviews and quizzes that explore pop-culture, fashion and celebrity in relation to the world of “Sonny With A Chance.” Updates coincide with each new episode premiere.

Source: Disney Channel Press Release

Image Credit: Bauer Griffin

In another announcement today, Disney has said they ordered a fourth season of the smash hit “Hannah Montana”. Production on season 3 wraps this week and season 4 will be underway next year. The storyline for the fourth season will have the Stewarts grappling with saying goodbye to their beachfront Malibu home.

Gary Marsh made the announcement and said, “’Hannah Montana’ has become one of the most iconic series in television history. That is a direct result of the extraordinary collaboration between the show’s producers, writers and cast – all of whom constantly challenge each other to raise the bar, comedically, musically and from a storytelling perspective. In keeping with that approach, Miley and the producers have proposed a change of setting for Season Four that will provide the catalyst for wonderful new characters and further expand the storytelling opportunities.”

The series will contain the same characters we all know and love. Since the Stewarts are saying goodbye to their beachfront home, I imagine season 4 is the last season.

Are you happy about another season of “Hannah Montana”?

Source: Disney Channel Press Release

Image Credit: Bauer Griffin

Rumor has it that Miley Cyrus’s boyfriend, Justin Gaston, has landed a role in a new TV drama called “Santa Cruz”.

There aren’t very many details to report, except that it looks like he has landed the lead role.

The drama is being offered to several networks such as FOX and HBO. Justin started off his career modeling and then headed into the music industry.

Justin competed on “Nashville Star” and cam in 10th place. That’s where he met Billy Ray Cyrus, who later introduced him to Miley.

Can he act? I guess we might be able to find out!

Source: Aceshowbiz

Image Credit: INF

Entertainment Weekly has an interesting article coming out in their May 22nd issue, which hits newsstands May 18th. The title of the article is “Breaking Up with Disney” and can be found on page 32.

(Check out the cover of this issue on the right.)

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Sooner or later everybody has to leave home—even if home is a castle sparkling with pixie dust. Last month, Disney’s biggest stars, Miley Cyrus and Zac Efron, showed signs that they could survive outside of the Magic Kingdom. For three years now, the Disney Channel has groomed Cyrus and Efron as carefully as Geppetto once carved a puppet out of wood. “It’s almost like the old studio system, where they own you,” says agent Cindy Osbrink, who handles Dakota Fanning, as well as Disney kid Kyle Massey (Cory in the House). “There are feature films and recording contracts. It’s all or nothing.” But, she adds, “it’s not a bad thing. They take care of the kids very well.”

So, what does happen when a Disney star moves on? According to EW, it can be a difficult thing.

The upside for Disney is that once a teen star moves on, the company no longer has to answer for every saucy leaked photo and tab­loid scandal. On the other hand, Disney and this generation have made beautiful money together. Breaking up is hard to do.

I do wonder just how hard it is for a Disney star to move on. It seems that others have moved on okay and have had successful careers. And then, there are some who stay with Disney as long as they’ll have them.

As for Miley Cyrus and Zac Efron…I think they’ll be just fine.

Source & Image Credit: Entertainment Weekly

Disney’s D23, which is “The Official Community for Disney Fans”, has announced its Summer 2009 Special Events Calendar.

They have a little bit of everything planned, from special screenings to stepping behind-the-scenes with Mary Poppins.

D23 also announced its first members-only contest!

“D23 Members are Disney’s biggest fans, and they’re always looking for distinctive, memorable ways to celebrate the things they love most about Disney,” said Steven Clark, Head of D23.  “For our inaugural season of events and contests, we’ve created an experientially and geographically diverse calendar that we know our Members will enjoy and remember fondly for years.”

See the calendar of events below.

Read more

The Walt Disney Company announced today (May 14) Disney’s Friends for Change: Project Green, which is “a multiplatform environmental initiative that will help kids help the planet.”

Some of your favorite Disney stars such as Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, the Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato (29 total DC stars!) will be participating in sharing the message which will debut on Disney Channel, Disney XD, Radio Disney and Disney.com.

Here’s more information. Be sure and visit http://www.disney.com/projectgreen too:

The Disney’s Friends for Change: Project Green initiative invites young people to join together to help the environment across four key areas: climate, water, waste and habitats.  Kids will learn practical ways to preserve the planet, track their collective impact and have the opportunity to vote on how $1 million in donations from Disney will be divided and invested in various environmental causes over the course of a year.

This is very exciting news! I am all about doing something and spreading the message on taking better care of our planet. I think this is a fantastic idea.

You can get more information, like when the messages will start airing and what you can do for our planet by working together, below.

Read more

We’ve been hearing that this would happen for quite some time, but I began to wonder if it actually would!

Disney announced today that they have teamed up with the streaming video site Hulu.

Very soon, some of your favorite Disney Channel shows will be available on-line.

In the very near future you’ll get to log on to your computer and watch episodes of “Wizards of Waverly Place” and other great shows.

I am very excited about this and think it’s a great move for Disney to make. It just makes sense to start bringing everything online.

Source: Disney press release

Image Credit: SXC

The Walt Disney Company has signed a deal with YouTube which will bring clips from the Disney Channel, ABC and ESPN to the video streaming site. I say…it’s about time!

In addition to professional clips, in-stream commercials, episode recap and webisodes, the Disney content will be housed in a unique commercial-oriented channel separate from amateur, semi-pro and non-commercial video content.

What does this mean for the deal with Hulu, which would be streaming full episodes? It doesn’t completely rule it out.

Disney has not released an official word about the deal on when we can expect to see the content uploaded and made available. I think this is a very smart move on Disney’s part! Thousands of clips from the Disney Channel are uploaded weekly anyway, so why not make them professional and official? Makes sense to me!

Source

We are getting even more news about the cast, or lack of cast, for “High School Musical 4″. Matt Prokop announced on his MySpace at the beginning of this month, that he would not be in HSM4. It’s just been announced that Jemma McKenzie-Brown, who played Tiara in HSM3, will not be in the movie either.

She said: “I think it’s been decided they’re going for a whole new route with it which is a shame but I had a really good time doing the third one.”

She added: “I’m back to auditioning and have got some cool opportunities and good scripts so hope something comes up!

“When I’m 16 and have left school I can start concentrating on other stuff and in ten years time I’ll hopefully have a film or two under my belt but I love theatre too so that would be fun.”

I actually think this might be a smart move. I wasn’t quite sure about these “newbies” that they brought in for HSM3 anyway. Something seemed a little off to me. If they are going to do another High School Musical movie without the original cast, they really do need to surprise us and it sounds like that’s exactly what Disney has up their sleeve. We know the story line, but the cast is a mystery.

What do you think about this choice?

Source: PA

Image Credit: PR Photos