The above image has been dominating the rumor mill since it was introduced to the world last night.  In general the image claims to be concept art from the upcoming “MLP Movie” that was just announced this weekend (and somewhat known for a few months as a rumor).

Unfortunately the source is Fuck—No—My—Little—Pony, a Tumblr dedicated to making fun basically all sides of the pony fandom, from the bronies who freak out to the anti-bronies/haters who rage about the very fact there is a fandom around the show.  Bottom line, not a reliable source in most people’s mind.

So it is not surprising that most people have declared this picture to be fake, and probably nothing more than a hoax cooked up by trolls.

Unfortunately I can say with about 95% certainty that this is not fake.

And I know people will not take my word for this, it is why I do not report about it on DHN.  My only sources are three different individuals with close ties to Hasbro who over the course of the past six months have brought this topic up.  To name these sources would cause these people to possible be in danger of losing their job, and well, this is a fandom about colorful equine, its not worth getting people fired.

So it is up to you to believe me or not, either way I couldn’t really give a fuck, I’m just laying the cards out on the table, and proof will come in July during the San Diego Comic Con where Hasbro is planning on announcing this.

There are multiple clues pointing at this being fact though, and when put together it does make sense.

1.  Over this past weekend Hasbro announced an MLP movie along with a new Intellectual Property aimed towards young teenagers.  Now new IP can range from new lines of toys, even within their current lines (good example is the Royal Wedding line of ponies toys) to new projects.

2.  The recent trademark given to Hasbro aka “Equestria Girls”, filed under the US Patent & Trademark office, serial number 85805634 and 85804403.  These trademarks are for “Dolls, doll clothing and doll accessories” along with “Entertainment services, namely an on-going animated television series for children”.  The community took notice to this when Hasbro shut down EquestriaGirls.com, a simple site that had a looping video of the pony video & song, Equestria Girls.

3.  Top Draw Animation, the Philippine based studio which does work for Hasbro Studio (DHX only does part of the animations) has had under its “Under Production” a My Little Pony DVD that began production in August 27th 2012 and completed December 21st 2012.  The detail section displayed “1x66 minutes” which equates to one episode that is 66 minutes long.  Click here to see the screenshot.

4.  Season 3 being cut in half.  This one is probably somewhat of a long shot, but it seems ideal that Hasbro would take the budget of a full season 3, chop it in half, and use that unused half to produce this film and new IP.  More or less they don’t invest new money into the project, they use already budgeted money.  Season 4 is back to 26 episodes cause the project is done and it is a new budget year.

The general concept behind this is Hasbro is moving in on the tween market to compete with other toys such as Monster High and the Bratz dolls, as they currently have no product.  They are using My Little Pony because its a pop-culture icon that has been around 30 years, coupled with the fact that MLP:FiM is quite popular.

To note many people think the brony fandom makes up the majority of this popularity, when in fact we make up about 40%.  The other 60% is the intended target audience of 6 to 10 year olds.  To create a new IP such as this, based on MLP makes sense as these 10 year olds in several years will be tweens.

As for the movie, the general concept I have been told is that the ponies discover and fall into some sort of portal, and when they reach the other side they find themselves as humans in an alternative Equestrian universe.  And yes, they’re going to go to high school, and probably have boyfriends and the whole nine.

And I know people are going to start freaking out about this, but here is one fact.  This is something totally separate from Friendship is Magic.  It is a spin-off that will probably never been canonized in the actual show, and all in all has nothing to do with the show except using the general world and characters.

So if the entire thing is as horrible as it sounds, you can just ignore it, like most of us plan to do.  But you never know, it might be entertaining if it is well executed.

The facts will be known come July.  As said, you can believe me or not, when I troll people, I do it anonymously.