Tendo Nagenda has been hired as a vp production at Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

Nagenda signed on before Sean Bailey was named head of production, becoming chairman Rich Ross’ first hire in the production ranks, though Nagenda is not expected to start until March.

Nagenda most recently worked as a vp production at Mandate Pictures, where he was overseeing and acting as a co-producer on the untitled James McAvoy-Seth Rogen cancer dramedy, which goes before cameras next month. Nagenda also was overseeing the Jay Baruchel-Seth Rogen comedy “Jay and Seth vs. the Apocalypse” and the Nacho Vigalondo action comedy “Gangland.”

With Disney chairman Rich Ross on the verge of naming a new head of  production, possibly as early as Thursday, studio insiders were betting Wednesday night that producer Sean Bailey would get the nod.

Oren Aviv was forced to resign as president of production Tuesday as Ross continues to put his own team into place. The studio did not immediately name his successor, and Bailey’s name was not among those in the first wave of speculation about possible replacements.

But by Wednesday night, Bailey was being mentioned by several sources as Aviv’s likely successor.

Bailey is a Disney-based producer who is currently producing the remake “Tron: Legacy,” which the studio has slated for release Dec. 17.

He is also developing a “Black Hole” remake at the studio, and he was behind “Captain Nemo: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” which Ross shelved for budgetary reasons in one of his first acts as chairman.

Bailey was a producer on “Gone, Baby,Gone” and a principal of shingle LivePlanet with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.

Disney spokespersons could not be reached for comment.

Less than a month after beaching “Captain Nemo: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” new Walt Disney chief Rich Ross has put the kibosh on “Wedding Banned,” a romantic comedy to have starred Robin Williams, Anna Faris and Diane Keaton.

The studio has put the project into turnaround, and the production company, Mandeville Films, is free to shop it around town.

“Banned” revolves around a long-divorced couple (Williams and Keaton) who kidnap their daughter (Faris) on her wedding day to prevent her from making the same mistakes they did. The parents rekindle their relationship as they elude cops and the angry groom.

The movie was being groomed for a shoot in 2010, but this week Ross made the decision to untether the project. One factor in the decision was the poor showing of the Robin Williams comedy “Old Dogs,” which has grossed just $35 million since its November 25 opening.

The decision to put “Banned” into turnaround has Disney-ites wondering what exactly constitutes a Disney studio movie in the Ross era, especially since “Banned” seemed to be in the mold of other studio hit comedies such as “The Proposal” and “Wild Hogs.”

When art from Disney’s animated fable “The Princess and the Frog” surfaced last March (the pic seen here to the left), it created a bit of a stir. The studio had been earning praise for making the title princess a black character, deviating from the studio’s historically white princesses.

The prince, on the other hand, garnered heat for what some deemed a lighter skin tone. The studio was already facing criticism over what some said were stereotypical depictions in the film, including that of the main character — who at one time was to be called by the reputed slave name Maddy (she’s now Tiana) — and a practitioner of voodoo who’s black, among others.

That the black princess would be rescued from black villains (among others) by a possibly white prince struck some as offensive (an extended debate on the subject here, though, interestingly, the original BET post making the case is no longer live).

Cut to a few days before release, and the prince is looking a little different. The ultimate iteration of the character – as seen in this trailer - shows him to be noticeably darker than he was in the original art.

We’ve been pretty receptive to the idea that Disney’s Robert Zemeckis pic “A Christmas Carol” will be a hit when it comes to theaters in six days. But after seeing the movie last week, we’re less sure.

The 3D motion-capture pic, a faithful retelling (in tone and dialogue) of the Dickens classic, is a a technical marvel, uncannily beautiful and attentive to detail. But narratively, the story of Ebenezer’s Scrooge visit to his past, present and future feels less compelling.

Some of the biz and media people we talked to at the screening Wednesday weren’t showing overwhelming support. The buzz was of a masterful filmmaking feat that’s nonetheless lacking in charm. (The movie has its dark moments, and while it’s not like we wanted easy uplift, it still feels like only a wonderfully constructed series of set pieces, without the emotional and storytelling swells you’d want from a story like this.)

The dash of optimism to the bad news about Daniel Battsek — to the degree there can be any when a a classy and smart exec leaves earlier than anticipated — is that there may be life in Miramax yet.

It’s tempting and probably not wholly inaccurate to read Disney’s decision to remove Battsek and move the division to Burbank as  a Vantage-like move to clean out what remains of a gutted vision. But a few insiders are saying  this weekend that Friday’s move was personal, not strategic, and that the Mouse House could actually bring in someone new (that is, install someone from the studio) to keep the unit going as a production label.

Supporting piece of evidence: Battsek and new Disney topper Rich Ross have no love lost for each other. Consider the faint praise of this email from Ross about Battsek. “During his 18 years of service, he has brought some prestigious and award-winning films to the studio.” Oh yeah, that chef we’ve kicked out? Yeah, he once made a couple good dishes.

With DreamWorks coming into the fold and Marvel filling out its tentpole ranks, it’s unlikely Disney will have much room on its plate for a boutique label. But with promising movies in the hopper (”The Debt,” “The Tempest”) and some development projects that could catch on (though we’re hearing one of them, Richard Linklater’s “Liars A-E,” has just seen its director drop off), it would be a wise and far-sighted move if Disney left a room for a little specialty-film dessert.

The growing ubiquity of the Disney “Christmas Carol” spots shows the favorable arc the pic has taken.

When Disney first showed footage at Cannes this year it seemed like so much overkill, promotion trying to will its way into a hit (the fact that several rooms in the lobby of a five-star hotel had been retrofitted to look like a holiday cottage — and that when we stepped outside we almost smacked into a battalion of horses, lining up to pull carriages on an 80-degree beach day — may have had something to do it).

It’s not that the movie wouldn’t achieve some sort of success — it’s more that it wouldn’t be a phenomenon in the way Robert Zemeckis fantasies can be. But now that spots are creeping into all manner of primetime programming (a trailer after the jump), it’s looking increasingly like it could be something more – a monster hit with laurels for its performance-capture technique and plaudits for actors (and, finally, a winner after a three-pic cold streak for Jim Carrey, though the guy still can’t get one in the live-action category).

By design or accident, the film sits at the crossroads of a perfect snowstorm of recent trends. The 3D treatment will buoy word-of-mouth, as it seems to do for so many pics (if it can do it for “My Bloody Valentine”). The title has the kind of built-in brand recognition that studios not only want but demand. And the talk in the animation community is fizzier by the moment.

The news Monday morning that Disney was buying Marvel for $4 billion in cash and stock elicited the reaction that acquisitions of this kind and size usually elicit: shock, followed by the (reflexive) nodding that this "makes sense for both sides."

On one level, there's truth to the sentiment: A conglomerate of Disney's scale is always looking for new movie franchises, and in an era when it's harder to create them from scratch, it's logical that a company would want to pick up some that are ready to go.  Marvel, meanwhile, lives in a world in which it's increasingly hard to run a public company whose core business is film or television production without investors getting antsy (just ask Carl Icahn-beset Lionsgate). So it's subsuming its bottom line in a huge conglom, shielding itself from the effects of a flop (or of Wall Street's angst over a flop), and getting some serious P&A money in the process.

But for all the appeal, an acquisition like this is never as simple as just plugging the strengths of one company into the other. Here are several areas of change to watch for in the Darvel era.

– Bring on the ladies? As the New York Times and others point out, Disney is solid with girl audiences but needs help with boys. Properties like "Iron Man" and "Thor" do the trick, But there's another side to the coin: getting women to like superhero movies. (If Brad Pitt could get women to watch a violent Tarantino flick…) As much as Marvel likes criss-crossing characters between movies, don't expect Hannah Montana to show up as an Avenger. Stil, Disney is expert at attracting young women to titles they may not normally be interested in (see under, Johnny Depp making the ultimate young-boy fantasy, a pirate-adventure, popular with girls). For all the talk about Marvel continuing to run independently, don't be surprised if the studio accesses Disney's stable of talent to make some pics more girl-friendly.

We thought Cannes was, like, for auteurs and stuff. And sure, there are still a few of those making their way to the south of France in a couple weeks. But the big news today about the happenings on the Croisette comes from Disney, which says that it will unspool a first look at the Robert Zemeckis-directed, Jim Carrey-starring, 3D-shot "A Christmas Carol" at the festival (outside the fest's screenings slots) next month.

Cannes sneaks are a way of building buzz among a certain tastemaker set — it's something Paramount used to great effect for "Kung Fu Panda" last  year. But there appears to be something else going on with this Disney announcement: 3D films are now suddenly in vogue among the cinephile set.

This will be the second chance Cannes attendees will get to see a pic in that format, after its Pixar division landed the opening-night slot for its whimsical animated tale "Up." (That news has become even more notable as other U.S. tentpoles fail to land a festival slot — apparently Warners wanted "Terminator: Salvation" there but the fest struck down the idea like just another Skynet victim, though of course the studio could still throw something outside the fest.)

As American auteurs dwindle on the Croisette — this year, it could be down to Tarantino, Ang Lee and, well, that's about it it — there's a new auteur in town, the John Lasseter kind. Animated movies, 3D movies and animated 3D movies are suddenly seeking — and in many cases getting — critics' attention.

It's a topsy turvy world. High-end American directors like Christopher Nolan are shooting superhero movies, and Disney cartoons are heading to aesthete extravaganzas like Cannes. What's down is indeed, well, "Up."

In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, Dick Cook has a cameo in Disney's "Race to Witch Mountain."

Not only is it the first time ever the Disney chairman has appeared in one of his studio’s movies, he endures a rough fate — he gets blown up.

Cook, who began his career at Disney as a steam-train conductor at Disneyland, plays a locomotive conductor whose train enters a tunnel and crashes head on into a U.F.O., causing a fiery explosion. (Added clever inside ref: The name of the conductor is D. Walt, kind of like Walt D.)

So how and why did the Disney honcho land a bit part in the pic? According to filmmakers, early on in the production process, Cook and Disney Motion Pictures president Oren Aviv would frequently pop by the “Witch Mountain” production offices to look at designs, models and storyboards. When Cook saw toy tracks for the train sequence, he reminded director Andy Fickman of his Disneyland roots.

Fickman recalls joking back in return, “You know, I’m going to need a train engineer…” Producer Andrew Gunn says Fickman stayed on Cook by reminding him with a “I’m going to put  you in the movie” each time he saw him.

“And by the time we got to that scene, I emailed him and said, ‘You know, in my mind we cast you,’” said Fickman.

Cook was game. Under a veil of secrecy. wardrobe and makeup got Cook ready in his office, then got him to Stage 2, where the set was closed to everyone except the director, the producers and the Disney execs on the film, Brigham Taylor and Casey Wolfe. 

“He came out, we shot it,” says Gunn. “ It was all high secrecy. We managed to do it on the lot, on a soundstage, without anyone at Disney except for a handful knowing about it.”

(The movie is actually filled with  Easter egg cameos — Gunn is on screen for a split-second as a driver of a convertible while Taylor is seen as a member of the crowd at a sci-fi convention, dressed in a Tron outfit, a nod to the new Tron movie which is about to go into production. Also seen briefly as part of the sci-fi fan congregation are members of the online geek community including Drew McWeeney, formerly of Ain’t It Cool News and now with HitFix.)

At the movie's premiere, Cook played down his appearance. “Oh, you know, it was just fun to do,” he said in his trademark aw-shucks manner.

The train sequence ends with an earth-shattering explosion, the kind that no human being can walk away from. Yet iIn a throwaway line, a government operative surveying the scene says something along the lines of, “Luckily the engineer survived with only a few cuts and scrapes.” That no human can walk away from…unless you have the powers of a Disney chairman.

Just a few years ago, fantasy movies were so much the rage the were practically seething. The first "Chronicles of Narnia" earned more than $750 million globally, and studios were greenlighting tales of warlocks and wizards faster than a certain kind of eleven-year-old rolls the six-sided dice.

"Harry Potter" still works its spell. But the box-office sag for the second Narnia earlier this year (the global take fell to about $420 million) has prompted an unusual rethink, namely: Disney won't partner with Walden on the third picture. As Borys Kit reports, "The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader" was set to go into production in the spring. But the Iger conglom has taken a look at the numbers and decided not to voyage with Voyage. Walden is now looking for other studio partners, with Fox a leading candidate.

It's likely the film will still get made. And Hollywood has a history of reviving genres at the exact moment everyone's pronouncing them dead (the first fantasy revival, brought about by "Potter" and "Lord of the Rings," was hardly a sure thing; most people thought Peter Jackson had lost his marbles like Isildur lost the ring). But the decision might give some chills, for several reasons.

First, it shows how fragile and ephemeral even a supposedly strong franchise can be. That should give pause even to those with strong incumbent franchises, from Warners' Batman to Marvel Studios' Iron Man.

More specifically, it shows that when Disney a few years ago decided to go in the direction of built-in franchises, it wasn't kidding around. The company could, without any major risks, probably still pull in $300 or $400 million in global box-office for a new Narnia picture. With the right budgets, that's a profitable installment by pretty much any measure.

But it turns out that Disney is very specific in the numbers and upside it wants. Even a global publishing powerhouse and sequels that earn nearly half a billion dollars may not fit with its plans.

Time to cast a spell — the business is getting spooky.

We’ve suffered though incessant mocking recently for our desire to see “Beverly Hills Chihuahua.” But the truth is that the movie works on several levels, including one that may even entertain adults. (And no, mind-altering drugs won’t be required.)

“Chihuahua” is mostly a talking-dogs movie, though adults, a rat and an iguana also make their voices heard. It hits the more obvious family-movie themes of honoring your heritage but, more interestingly, also treads a fine line between dark and light.

The storyline involves a pampered female named Chloe who ends up kidnapped while on a vacation in Mexico, then escapes with the help of an ex-cop searching for redemption. The two are then chased by the bad guy who in fact got the cop kicked off the force. It’s a solid cop drama — except that Chloe is a Chihuahua, the ex-cop is a German Shepherd (he used to be on the K-9 division), and the goon is a Doberman. Amazingly, it all works.  By the end, when the dog is asked back on the force, many members of the audience we spotted at the premiere, including Alyssa Milano and Placido Domingo, had tears in their eyes.

Disney faced some tough choices in making it. A few months ago, it tested a more adult version of the movie and a more kid friendly version of the movie. Both tested well, and the company tried to find a middle ground. Among the more adult scenes: Chloe, voiced by Drew Barrymore, is put into a dogfighting ring where she is to be shredded by the Doberman, as onlooking humans call for blood.

“‘How did we get that one through,’ you’re asking,” laughed director Raja Gosnell at the premiere. “We had to be very careful in the tone of it. Drew’s character is never afraid, she’s plucky the whole time; the music was never too scary;  we had bits of comedy whenever we could; and we never made the Doberman too ferocious. All those things working together keeps the audience on an even keel.”

Disney has actually come under fire for its dog movies in the past, notably for “101 Dalmatians” and “Eight Below,” with animal-rights orgs accusing them of encouraging parents to buy pets that only end up in shelters once the novelty wears off. This movie’s no different — there were actually about 20 protesters outside the El Capitan Theatre shouting things like “Adopt, don’t shop!” And last Friday, the California Animal Control Directors Association took  ads out in protest.

But these orgs may want to know that one of the movie’s messages is to take in strays, and it also generally advocates the benefits of pet adoption and obligations of pet ownership. Gosnell even used dogs from shelters for the movie – one of the lead Chihuahuas was found in a shelter one day away from being put to sleep – and the studio says it has found homes for them all.