Exclusive: Facebook offering e-retailers sales tracking tool

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc wants more credit for making online cash registers ring.

Facebook will begin rolling out on Friday a new tool which will allow online retailers to track purchases by members of the social network who have viewed their ads.

The tool is the latest of the new advertising features Facebook is offering to convince marketers that steering advertising dollars to the company will deliver a payoff.

Facebook, with roughly 1 billion users, has faced a tough reception on Wall Street amid concerns about its slowing revenue growth.

"Measuring ad effectiveness and outcomes is absolutely crucial to all types of businesses and marketers," said David Baser, a product manager for Facebook's ads business who said the "conversion measurement" tool has been a top customer request for a long time.

The sales information that advertisers receive is anonymous, said Baser. "You would see the number of people who bought shoes," he said, using the example of an online shoe retailer. But marketers would not be able to get information that could identify the people, he added.

The conversion tool is specifically designed for so-called direct response marketers, such as online retailers and travel websites that advertise with the goal of drumming up immediate sales rather than for longer-term brand-building.

Such advertisers have long flocked to Google Inc's Web search engine, which can deliver ads to consumers at the exact moment they're looking for information on a particular product.

But some analysts say there is room for Facebook to make inroads if it can demonstrate results.

"The path to purchase" is not as direct on Facebook as it is on Google's search engine, said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst with research firm eMarketer. But she said that providing information about customer sales conversion should help Facebook make a stronger case to online retailers.

"It lets marketers track the impact of a Facebook ad hours or days or even a week beyond when someone might have viewed the ad," said Williamson. "That allows marketers to understand the impact of the Facebook ad on the ultimate purchase."

Marketers will also have the option to aim their ads at segments of Facebook's audience with similar attributes to consumers that have responded well to a particular ad in the past, Baser said.

Online retailer Fab.com, which has tested Facebook's new service, was able to reduce its cost per new customer acquisition by 39 percent when it served ads to consumers deemed most likely to convert, Facebook said. Facebook defines a conversion as anything from a completed sale, to a consumer taking another desired action on a website, such as registering for a newsletter.

NEW OPPORTUNITIES

Shares of Facebook, which were priced at $38 a share in its May initial public offering, closed Thursday's regular session at $22.17.

In recent months, Facebook has introduced a variety of new advertising capabilities and moved to broaden its appeal to various groups of advertisers.

Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said in October that Facebook saw multi-billion revenue opportunities in each of four groups of advertisers: brand marketers, local businesses, app developers and direct response marketers.

Facebook does not disclose how much of its ad revenue, which totaled $1.09 billion in the third quarter, comes from each type of advertiser. Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser estimates that brand marketers and local businesses account for the bulk of Facebook's current advertising revenue.

Earlier this year, Facebook introduced a similar conversion measurement service for big brand advertisers, such as auto manufacturers, partnering with data mining firm Datalogix to help connect the dots between consumer spending at brick-and-mortar and Facebook ads.

And Facebook has rolled out new marketing tools for local businesses such as restaurants and coffee shops, including a revamped online coupon service and simplified advertising capabilities known as promoted posts.

The new conversion measurement tool is launching in testing mode, but will be fully available by the end of the month, Facebook said.

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; editing by Carol Bishopric)

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AP source: Melky Cabrera, Blue Jays reach deal

NEW YORK (AP) — The busy Toronto Blue Jays struck again Friday with their latest big deal: All-Star game MVP Melky Cabrera is set to join them in his return from a drug suspension.

A person familiar with the negotiations said the free agent outfielder and the Blue Jays have reached agreement on a two-year contract worth $16 million. The deal is pending a physical, the person told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because there was no official announcement.

ESPN Deportes first reported the agreement Friday.

Earlier this week, the Blue Jays got All-Star shortstop Jose Reyes and pitchers Josh Johnson and Mark Buehrle from the Miami Marlins in a blockbuster trade that could involve a dozen players.

Toronto has not reached the playoffs since winning its second straight World Series in 1993, and has often been stuck behind big spenders in the AL East. After going 73-89 this year, the Blue Jays have made quite a splash in the offseason.

The 28-year-old Cabrera was leading the National League in hitting at .346 for the San Francisco Giants when he drew a 50-game suspension Aug. 15 for a positive testosterone test.

Cabrera later asked to be removed from consideration for the NL batting title, feeling it would be a tainted crown — a rule change in the number of required plate appearances for the champion let Giants teammate and eventual NL MVP Buster Posey win at .336.

The Giants didn't put Cabrera on their postseason roster on the way to winning the World Series, even after he became eligible at the start of the NL championship series.

Cabrera hit 11 home runs with 60 RBIs in his lone year with San Francisco. He hit .305 with 18 homers and 87 RBIs the previous season with Kansas City, then was traded to the Giants.

Cabrera made his major league debut in 2005 with the New York Yankees and stayed with them until being traded to Atlanta after the 2009 season.

The Blue Jays had their share of sluggers — Edwin Encarnacion hit 42 homers and two-time home run champ Jose Bautista hit 27 — but didn't score at an exceptional rate.

Toronto averaged 4.42 runs per game last season, slightly below the AL average.

Cabrera is friendly with Encarnacion and Bautista, another reason he felt comfortable joining the Blue Jays.

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Can NBC keep up its ratings swagger without NFL, “The Voice”?

NEW YORK (Reuters) – NBC is expected to wrap up its fall season as the No. 1 broadcast network in the key 18-49 advertising demographic for the first time in a decade.

The network’s catapult to first place from fourth in the ratings is the biggest surprise so far of the young TV season. The question is how long can its ratings momentum last.

The Comcast-owned network has seen a surge in the fall fueled by two shows that won’t be around by the end of December, its red-hot Sunday Night NFL telecast and the hugely popular singing competition “The Voice.”

The numbers are shining a positive light on Entertainment Chief Bob Greenblatt, in his second year since moving over from the Showtime cable network. In the first quarter of 2013, however, analysts and advertising buyers say holes in NBC‘s lineup can’t make up for the loss of its two top shows.

“I’m skeptical about whether their ratings are sustainable,” said Brad Adgate, who heads research for the advertising firm Horizon Media. “Once those shows go on hiatus or they are doing repeats, I’d be surprised if what they replace with them with will deliver those type of numbers.”

When the TV season started, NBC boosted its ratings by adding a second season of the “The Voice” in the fall, instead of airing it only during the spring, and showing it on Mondays and Tuesdays.

The show gave NBC ratings victories in the 18-49 demographic, the age group that advertisers seek, has consistently won its time slots while boosting shows like “Revolution” and “Go On” that followed it.

Total viewers increased from a year ago by 20 percent, to an average of 8.8 million per night, while rivals CBS, FOX and ABC are all down in total viewers.

NBC‘s ratings engines throttle back without “The Voice,” which goes off the air from Dec 17 until March 25. When it returns, it also faces an uncertain reception as new judges Shakira and Usher replace Christina Aguilera and Cee Lo Green.

On December 30, NBC will air its final Sunday night football game of the year, taking prime time’s top-rated show with it, Jeff Bader, NBC‘s president of program planning, strategy and research, said in an interview on Thursday.

NBC‘s ratings will weaken in January, he conceded. The January-to-March period won’t be “necessarily about winning” in the ratings but about getting one or two shows to stick with viewers, he said.

“I wish we had Sunday night football all year, but hopefully these other returning shows will keep us in the hunt,” Bader said.

UBS analyst John Janedis predicts that CBS and FOX will move past the Peacock network by the end of the TV season, and CBS’ Chief Executive Les Moonves vowed on a November 7 earnings call that his network will finish “on top” and “strong in every single one of the key demos.”

“The Voice” served as a launch pad for the hit drama “Revolution,” a post-apocalyptic thriller that airs on Mondays and is set 15 years after all the world’s electricity stopped functioning. But that show, like “The Voice,” is going on hiatus from November 26 to March 25.

Greenblatt has “to make sure that ‘Revolution’ stays strong, said Optimedia media buyer Maureen Bosetti. “I’m a little bit cautious to say he’s a huge success until he’s got more solid hits under his belt that he’s developed.”

NBC will air the weight-loss reality show “The Biggest Loser” in the place of “the Voice” on Mondays, followed by “Deception,” a one-hour soap opera about a murder in a wealthy family that replaces “Revolution.” On Tuesdays, a reality show called “Betty White’s Off Their Rockers” featuring senior citizens playing pranks will take “the Voice” slot.

Ad agency GroupM media buyer Shari Cohen is more optimistic about NBC‘s chances without “The Voice” and said she is impressed by the network’s comeback this season.

“The void will be felt, but there’s confidence enough in their strategy and other nights of the week where they have been gaining traction and things that will be coming back in 2013 like ‘Smash’,” Cohen said.

“Smash,” a lavishly produced and heavily promoted musical drama about a Broadway show starring Katharine McPhee and Debra Messing, finished as NBC‘s top drama in its first season in 18-49 age group and will return for its second season February 5.

The show is heavily championed by Greenblatt, the programming chief who came to Comcast in 2011 after it took control of NBC in a $ 30 billion deal. When he left the CBS-owned Showtime cable channel, it was in the midst of a phenomenal run of developing hit shows such as “Dexter,” “Weeds,” and “The L Word” for cable’s Showtime network.

Greenblatt’s programming performance has been mixed at NBC. He inherited the “The Voice,” and had the benefit of this summer’s NBC Olympic telecast, which enabled him to promote the fall lineup before the more than 30 million people who tuned into the London games each night.

That gave a boost to “Revolution, “Go On” and “The New Normal,” a sitcom from “Glee” creator Ryan Murphy, which were all ordered for full-seasons and are all highly rated new shows. But “Animal Practice,” another program that aired in a special preview after one Olympics telecast, was canceled after six episodes.

NBC is coming off a strong third quarter in which its revenue jumped 31.2 percent to $ 6.8 billion thanks Deto the London Olympics. Excluding the Olympics, its revenue increased 8.3 percent, the company said.

Amy Yong, a sell-side analyst for Macquarie bank, raised her estimates on Comcast in October, citing ratings growth at NBC as a contributing factors.

The NBC model for continued success resembles a strategy employed by Fox, which scheduled shows like “House” and “Bones” after the then-towering ratings champ “American Idol.”

Bader, the NBC scheduling executive, said his network will continue to use “The Voice”‘s momentum as best it can even as it heads toward its three-month break. After the December 17 finale, NBC will air a preview of a new comedy set in the White House called “1600 Penn.”

(Reporting By Liana B. Baker; Editing by Ronald Grover and Leslie Gevirtz)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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Judge grants Miley Cyrus civil restraining order

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge has granted Miley Cyrus a three-year civil restraining order against a man convicted of trespassing at her home in Los Angeles.

The stay-away order was granted Friday against Jason Luis Rivera by Superior Court Judge William D. Stewart.

The 40-year-old Rivera was convicted in October of trespassing at the singer's home and sentenced to 18 months in jail.

He is scheduled to be released in May. Authorities said at the time of Rivera's arrest in September that he was carrying scissors and ran into the wall of Cyrus' home as if trying to break in.

Rivera did not respond to Cyrus' petition.

The 20-year-old former star of "Hannah Montana" did not attend the hearing. Her attorney Bryan Sullivan declined comment.

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Sources: Liguori planned as next Tribune CEO

When Tribune Co. emerges from bankruptcy, the new owners plan to name television executive Peter Liguori as the company's chief executive, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Liguori is a former top TV executive at Fox and Discovery. The decision to name him Tribune's CEO ends months of speculation and will usher in a new era for the Chicago media company, which owns newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, and television stations.

The Federal Communications Commission on Friday signed off on waivers needed to transfer Tribune Co.'s broadcast properties to the new ownership, the final significant hurdle before the company can emerge from its long-running stay in Chapter 11.

While a date for emergence is not set, the new ownership group controlled by senior creditors Oaktree Capital Management, Angelo, Gordon & Co. and JP Morgan Chase, will likely take the reins by the end of the year. An initial step for the owners will be to appoint a board of directors. It will have final say on who becomes CEO, but sources say the owners have chosen Liguori.

"The decision has been made," one of the sources said.

Los Angeles Times publisher Eddy Hartenstein has been CEO of Tribune Co. since May 2011. A Tribune Co. spokesman declined comment.

A former advertising executive who transitioned into television more than two decades ago, Liguori, 52, is credited with turning cable channel FX into a programming powerhouse during his ascent to entertainment chief at News Corp.'s Fox Broadcasting. More recently, he served as chief operating officer at Discovery Communications Inc., where he helped oversee the rocky launch of the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Liguori is considered by some observers to be a good fit for Tribune and its new owners. While the company's identity is closely connected to publishing, broadcasting is now its headline business and core profit center. One of Liguori's main jobs will be to help maximize TV ratings, advertising dollars and increasingly important affiliate fees for WGN America and Tribune Co.'s 23 local stations, according to industry insiders.

Liguori "is a very, very smart hire for Oaktree and the guys that run the company because I think what Tribune needs more than anything is somebody to kind of build the brands back and make it a true media company, as opposed to just a collection of businesses," said Jeff Shell, London-based president of NBCUniversal International, who worked with Liguori for six years at Fox beginning in 1996. Shell, whose name had once been floated as a candidate for Tribune CEO, spoke recently about his former colleague's potential value as head of Tribune Co.

Liguori, who could not be reached for comment, became president of Fox's FX Networks in 1998, when it was a small basic cable channel airing reruns of everything from "M*A*S*H" to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Elevated to CEO in 2001, he remade FX by offering edgy original programming. Starting with "The Shield" in 2002, Liguori rolled out "Nip/Tuck" and "Rescue Me," creating first-run successes that redefined FX, and perhaps basic cable, in the process.

"FX was a channel, when he took over, a little tiny cable channel losing a bunch of money," Shell said. "He made it into something big by imagining something different, and I think that's what Tribune needs."

Liguori became president of entertainment for Fox Broadcasting Co. in 2005, where he headed program development and marketing. Squeezed out in 2009, he then joined Discovery as chief operating officer, where one of his responsibilities was to oversee the nascent joint venture with OWN.

In May 2011, Liguori assumed the dual role as interim CEO of OWN after inaugural head Christina Norman was forced out at the struggling network. That added responsibility evaporated two months later when Winfrey made herself CEO of OWN. Liguori left Discovery in December and the company eliminated his COO position.

Liguori has been working since July as a New York-based media consultant for private equity firm, the Carlyle Group. He currently serves on the boards of Yahoo, MGM Holdings and Topps.

Tribune Co. has been operating under bankruptcy court protection for nearly four years, having buckled under the $13 billion in total debt it took on after its 2007 buyout. The company's stay in bankruptcy was prolonged by a drawn-out battle for control among creditors.

With the court having finally resolved the major ownership questions, the FCC's decision to grant waivers was the last major piece of the puzzle to come together.

The Federal Communication Commission's Media Bureau issued the waivers of its so-called cross-ownership rules for Tribune's media properties in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, South Florida and Hartford, Conn.

The waivers allow the agency to transfer TV and radio station licenses in those markets to Tribune's new owners, the group led by Oaktree Capital, Angelo Gordon and JPMorgan Chase.

The FCC granted Tribune a permanent waiver for the company's ownership of the Tribune and WGN-TV. The FCC also gave one-year waivers for the Tribune's ownership of the Los Angeles Times and KTLA-TV Channel 5 and for similar arrangements in New York, South Florida and Hartford.

The company would have one year in those four markets to sell either its newspapers or broadcast stations. But the FCC is in the process of considering loosening its media ownership rules to make it easier for companies to get waivers for newspaper and broadcast station combinations in the top 20 markets.

"We are extremely pleased with today's action by the FCC," Hartenstein said in a statement Friday. "This decision will enable the company to continue moving forward toward emergence from Chapter 11, a process we expect to complete over the course of the next several weeks."

Tribune Newspapers reporter Jim Puzzanghera contributed to this report 

rchannick@tribune.com | Twitter @RobertChannick

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Cutler held out of Bears' practice

The Chicago Bears practiced Thursday for the first time since Jay Cutler was knocked out of Sunday’s loss to the Texans, but the quarterback did not participate as he continues his recovery from a concussion.

Jason Campbell ran the first-team offense as the Bears took to the field in preparation for Monday’s game at San Francisco. Cutler has not yet been cleared to return to football activities and his availability for the game remains unknown.

"“I know you have a lot of Jay Cutler questions," coach Lovie Smith said. "There is not a whole lot I can say. He is getting better. Don’t know if he’ll be able to go this week.

Smith would not say if there is a chance Cutler will practice Friday.

Smith did say it was possible that Cutler could play Monday even if he didn't practice this week, although the team prefers that players practice at least once.

Regarding Campbell, Smith said, "If Jason has to play, believe me, we feel real good about him."

Rookie defensive end Shea McClellin also missed practice while recovering from a concussion suffered against the Texans. Rookie wide receiver Alshon Jeffery returned to practice from a broken hand sustained in the Jacksonville game but was limited.

49ers quarterback Alex Smith, who also suffered a concussion on Sunday, was cleared for non-contact practices Wednesday. Barring a setback, it looks like Smith, who is completing 70 percent of his passes, will start against the Bears.

The Bears could be relegated to using Campbell, who they signed to a $3.5 million, one-year contract at the outset of free agency in the event something happened to Cutler. This is the second concussion in three seasons for Cutler, who missed a game in 2010 after suffering a head injury.

Some teammates saw Cutler at Halas Hall before practice and reported he was upbeat.

“He just looks like the same old Jay,” defensive tackle Henry Melton said. “I’m not a doctor, so I can’t really say if he’s going to go or not. But right now he’s looking good, so we’ll just see what happens.”
 
Defensive end Israel Idonije said it’s a fine line when it comes to head injuries and a speedy return.

“He’s a fierce competitor, he’s a tough guy,” Idonije said. “If everything goes through and when he’s ready to play, he’s going to play, he’ll get in the game and he’ll be effective for us and he’ll play well for us. But it’s a game so I don’t think at any time as sharp of a guy as he is he’s willing to risk his livelihood for this one game, especially because it’s a long season and we have plenty of games ahead that we need him for. So, they’re going to make the assessment and when the time is right and he’s ready he’ll be back and we’ll move forward and play a lot of great football games.”

bmbiggs@tribune.com

Twitter @BradBiggs

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Dell profit falls 47 percent hurt by slow tech spending

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Dell Inc's profit slid 47 percent, hurt by lower PC sales and weaker demand from large corporations, but the No. 3 personal computer maker said it expects revenue to grow as much as 5 percent in the current quarter.

Dell shares fell 2.3 percent in after-hours trade. The company, once the world's top PC maker and a pioneer in computer supply chain management, is struggling to defend its market share against Asian rivals like Lenovo. It is trying to bolster growth by focusing on products and services to corporations.

The company founded by Chief Executive Michael Dell warned that it "sees the challenging global macro-economic environment continuing in the fourth quarter."

Dell said revenue in its fiscal third quarter fell 11 percent to $13.7 billion, slightly lower than the average analyst estimate of $13.89 billion according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

It posted net income of $475 million or 27 cents a share in the fiscal third quarter, compared with $893 million or 49 cents a year earlier. Excluding certain items, it earned 39 cents a share, compared to an average forecast for 40 cents.

Chief Financial Officer Brian Gladden said in an interview that corporate customers continue to defer technology spending.

"It's not clear what's going to cause them to increase their spending in the short term, given the uncertainty in the economy," he said.

Dell's enterprise solutions revenue rose 3 percent to $4.8 billion, while server and networking revenue climbed 11 percent. In contrast, consumer revenue plummeted 23 percent to $2.5 billion, underscoring the plight of the broader PC market, and sales to large corporation declined 8 percent to $4.2 billion in the quarter.

The consumer market is improving with the launch of the Windows 8 software from Microsoft, which has been designed with touchscreen devices and Internet-based computing in mind, Gladden said.

PLANNING FOR FISCAL CLIFF

Part of the spending weakness among corporate customers is because of the looming fiscal cliff, Gladden said.

The fiscal cliff involves $600 billion in automatic tax hikes and spending cuts effective at the end of the year if U.S. lawmakers fail to agree on reducing the budget deficit.

The cuts could take a toll on consumer and government spending and cause the economy to stall.

"I would tell you that the behavior we are seeing from our customers today is actually driven by that uncertainty," Gladden said. "It's not like it's all going to happen overnight. It's affecting our business today."

Dell is ensuring that it has access to cash in case there is no congressional action.

"I would say there are several things we are doing from a planning standpoint, especially on the treasury side to ensure that we are in a position to have appropriate access to liquidity," Gladden said, adding that Dell is making sure it has access to lines of credit and commercial paper.

Dell shares fell 2.3 percent to $9.36 in after-market trade from its close of $9.56. The shares initially rose following the release of the results.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta; Editing by PM Berlowitz and David Gregorio)

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NFL commissioner says sport will evolve, get safer

BOSTON (AP) — Professional football can evolve into a safer game without losing the physical play — or, some would say, violence — that has made it so popular, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in a speech on player safety at the Harvard School of Public Health on Thursday.

"Football has always evolved, and it always will," he told an overflow crowd of a few hundred. "Make no mistake: change does not inhibit the game; it improves it."

In a long-planned appearance that came a few days after three starting quarterbacks were knocked out with concussions, Goodell said that the NFL has already improved the way it has handled hits to the head. San Francisco's Alex Smith, Chicago's Jay Cutler and Philadelphia's Michael Vick were all diagnosed with concussions in Sunday's games, but Smith and Cutler kept playing for a short time after being injured.

Goodell said that all three were taken out "as soon as they showed symptoms," a claim that was challenged by a member of the audience during the period for questions.

"It was identified and they were taken out of the game," the commissioner said. "Even a few years ago, I'm not sure you would have seen that."

Listing some of the safety measures that have been incorporated into the sport both before and since he became commissioner, Goodell mentioned the elimination of the flying wedge that was first employed by Harvard in the 1800s and the change in kickoffs last season that he credited for a 40 percent reduction in concussions on returns. He said the league is looking into better helmets and sponsoring scientific research that could make the game still safer.

"Not long ago, the game allowed the head slap, tackling by the face mask, horse-collar tackles, dangerous blocks, and hits to the head of defenseless receivers and quarterbacks. All of that has changed," he said.

"My commitment has been and will continue to be to change the culture of football to better protect players without changing the essence of what makes the game so popular. It has been done.

"And it will be done."

But the changes are coming too late for thousands of former players who are suing the NFL, claiming it withheld information on the damage concussions can do to their long-term health. Research has shown that repeated hits to the head, even those that do not cause concussions, can cause brain damage that leads to memory loss and depression and has been blamed for the suicides of several former players.

Goodell stressed that there is risk of injury in all sports.

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ABC Adapting Disney Theme-Park Ride for “Big Thunder Mountain” Pilot

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – ABC found ratings success by adapting Disney‘s finest fairy tales into the one-hour drama series “Once Upon a Time,” so it’s not surprising that the network has turned to a theme-park ride from its parent company for inspiration as well.

Popular roller coaster Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is being adapted for a television pilot by the Disney-owned network, an individual with knowledge of the situation told TheWrap.

Chris Morgan (“Wanted,” “Fast Five”) will co-write the story with “Ice Age: Continental Drift’s” Jason Fuchs, who will write the teleplay. ABC has ordered a script from ABC Studios, the individual said.

No word on what the show will have in common with the ride, but if it sticks with the theme presented to visitors at parks in California, Florida, Paris and Tokyo, it should have something to do with a mining town being destroyed by a natural disaster after settlers desecrate sacred Native American land.

Two other film projects have been developed based on Disney rides, “Pirates of the Caribbean” and 2003′s not-equally-successful “The Haunted Mansion.”

Morgan is represented by ICM Partners and McKuin Frankel, while Fuchs is repped by WME and Brookside and Bloom Hergott.

The Hollywood Reporter first broke the news on “Big Thunder Mountain.”

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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