Though I'm not quite sure what other G or PG rated movies will be out next summer, "Chicken Little," because of its release during the summer and the potential to hook kids and adults who have already seen the movie (making it a good movie to see again, just like "Groove"), "Chicken Little" should turn out to be a "Tarzan" -sized hit (about $140 million). Which is to say that it will garner moderate praise and be considered a success, and also would actually MAKE money for WDFA. Now, knowing that Mark Dindal and Randy Fullmer are riding herd on the project (the two men who saved "Kingdom of the Sun" by morphing it into "Groove"), and that 2 of the 6 great remaining animators at WDFA are involved, Nik Ranieri (Lumiere, Meeko, Hades, Kuzco) animating Chicken Little's father, and Ellen Woodbury (Zazu, Pegasus) with somebody else (I don't remember exactly who), I would say that "Chicken Little" should provide quality entertainment and should certainly be more enjoyable than any Disney animated film since "Lilo and Stitch." However, now with the Jim Hill article suddenly popping up, there are some questions being raised. But then again, Jim Hill was also the one that thought that "Finding Nemo" was "so-so" and would only do marginally well at the box office.
As for 2-D animation...*sigh*, where to start? Okay, if you asked me, straight out, should Disney continue 2-D animation, I would reply simply, at the rate that they're going, no they should not. Because here's what would happen: Disney would produce about one, sometimes two animated films per year (not counting those February "token sequel" movies). This means that there would be no less than five animated movies in production at once. Now, from my estimation, there are only six great remaining animators, three great directors, and about five great story artists (these estimates do not include effects, art direction, layout, background, or clean-up, but rest assured that most of the good ones are gone as well). So you have to take this limited number of great talent and split them up into five movies. (To compare, "Beauty and the Beast" had about a dozen great animators, ten great story artists, two great directors, three great producers, two great songwriters, a great scriptwriter, and the best in the business supervising every other major department. And that was just ONE MOVIE!) So you have very little, sometimes no talent working on a particular movie, so it turns out to be crap. Compound this with the endless parade of idiot "creative executives" (the bane of "Atlantis," "Treasure Planet," and "Lilo and Stitch") who think that the only thing that animation is good for is not taking risks, following trends, and making money NOW. Finally, your token MBA finds some way to screw the movie on its release date and/or its marketing ("Brother Bear" and "Treasure Planet" are prime examples), the movie is both crappy and unsuccessful, and we Disney nuts have another year to sulk and moan about Disney animation. For me, I'm just mad that they didn't shut down the 2-D department after "Lilo and Stitch" came out, so we wouldn't have three mediocre (at best) movies to complain about, and the classic 2-D movies would be frozen in time, like artifacts from a lost age, sought-after and well respected, with hardly a blemish on the record. But instead they just let 2-D go down in flames. Thanks, idiot executives.
Now, I would very much like to see 2-D come back to its ORIGINAL glory, make no mistake about that. But to do this, they would have to employ a strategy similar to this: first, get rid of crappy sequels. I'm sure I don't have to go on and on about diluting the franchise and whatever, I'm sure all of you get it. Now, this is the hard part for brainless executives: You must have AT MOST two animated movies in production at once. This means that Disney animated movies would be released every OTHER year, with the Pixar movies released in between. That means that Disney would release one animated movie per year, with no crappy sequel movies in February like "Piglet 2: The Reckoning." This way, you can pool your talent onto two teams, each turning out quality product, with no interference from executives of any shape and size (size, size, size). That's what should be done with animation, and no, churning out six 3-D movies in four years will NOT get you extra money, despite what every token Development Executive spews out. *Sigh* We'll just have to wait and see, I guess.
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