Looking for fresh ways to market movies and television, the Walt Disney Internet Group (DIG) has signed a deal with Sprint PCS to offer three wireless games to Sprint cell phone users.

The Disney Internet Group, which operates a portfolio of news and entertainment sites including ESPN.com, ABC.com and ABCNEWS.com, said two of the new wireless games would be used to promote Disney movies -- "Monsters Inc." and "Atlantis: The Lost Empire".

A third game was created for the "2-Minute Drill" game show on sports television network ESPN. The company said the new game content would be available to Sprint PCS customers nationwide.

Highlighting research from DataMonitor that said one in six U.S. cell phone subscribers plays games on cell phones, Disney said the rollout of the games was part of its plans to target the wireless sector for the distribution of entertainment and Internet content.

DataMonitor said the market for wireless gaming this year exceeded 21.6 million people, with projections that 93 million people would be playing wireless games by 2006.

The Monsters Inc. game would resemble a mobile maze in which players catch screams and achieve status as a Monsters, Inc. professional kid scarer. The game offers 20 levels of play.

The game for ESPN's 2-Minute Drill lets players answer rapid-fire questions from a variety of sports categories.

Disney said the agreement reflects the growing demand for entertainment via mobile device.

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