Roy's recent track record at Feature Animation

[Pat X]

For a different point of view, from savemichaeleisner.com, please read the following. I don't agree with his conclusion though that Disney should just "copy Pixar" and a lot goes into the success or failure of any particular film, but he makes some interesting points. I did enjoy a lot of these movies he talks about though.

Thoughts?
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Roy Disney Asleep at the Wheel

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Michael Eisner has a big job, he oversees all divisions of the Walt Disney Company; Theme parks, Motion Picture Studios, ABC, Cable Channels, Imagineering, Interactive, Disney Cruise Line, Consumer Products, the list goes on and on. So to believe one person can micro manage every segment of this huge company is absurd. There are not enough hours in the day for one human to be directly involved in all of the business activities around the globe. Think about all the Disney locations and offices. So like any CEO he delegates responsibility.

The purpose of this article is to examine one unit of the Walt Disney Company; Feature Animation under the past leadership of Roy Disney.

Roy Disney served many years as Chairman of Walt Disney Feature Animation. It was only a few months ago that Roy Disney resigned from the Board of Directors and quit his position at Feature Animation. In the following months Roy has made many disparaging remarks toward his former boss and leveled many claims.

Inflammatory statements like, Michael Eisner has killed traditional animation. That Michael Eisner is the promoter of the cheap sequel. And that Michael Eisner is responsible for the closing of the Florida Feature Animation department. Roy’s claim is that Disney has lost its magic and its talent and that the last few years have made that evident.

But wait a minute, wasn’t Roy Disney in charge of feature animation during these last crucial years. Did Roy Disney just sit back and watch feature animation fail commercially time and time again and do nothing. If his concern was his uncle’s legacy to the art of animation, then why did he allow these substandard animated pictures to be made?

Let’s examine the last few years of feature animation under the leadership of Roy Disney.

Let’s go back five years….


Tarzan released June 1999

Production budget $130 million
Marketing cost $40 million
Domestic gross $171 million
Profit +1 million

Okay, not good returns. Sure it made money overseas and in video sales but those took additional marketing dollars as well. Was there any way Roy could have kept the costs down? Really $130 million for a film with half of the characters as The Lion King yet more then double the cost.

Fantasia 2000 released Jan. 2000

Production budget $80 million
Marketing cost $23 million
Domestic gross $58 million
Loss - 45 million

Big loss. I know, don’t forget overseas and video, but the object is to make money at the box office, which in turn gauges the success of the movie and provides capital and incentive to make more movies.

Tigger Movie released Feb. 2000

Production budget $30 million
Marketing cost $15 million
Domestic gross $45 million
Profit 0

Hey look we broke even at the box office. Sure we did with Tarzan but look at how high that financial risk was. Now overseas and video will be gravy.

Dinosaur released May 2000

Production budget $127 million, rumored as high as $200 million
Marketing cost $28 million
Domestic gross $137 million
Loss - 18 million, maybe more.

Ouch, way over budget and the loss could actually be higher.

The Emperor's
New Groove released Dec. 2000

Production budget $100 million
Marketing cost $25 million
Domestic gross $89 million
Loss - 36 million

Ouch again, the idea is to at least break even at the box office.
Recess:School's
Out released Feb. 2001

Production budget $23 million
Marketing cost $14 million
Domestic gross $36 million
Loss -1 million

Again, these lower budget movies tend to lose little money at the domestic box office.

Atlantis The
Lost Empire released Jun. 2001

Production budget $120 million
Marketing cost $35 million
Domestic gross $84 million
Loss -71 million

Roy, you're killing us here!

Peter Pan: Return
to Neverland released Feb. 2002

Production budget $20 million
Marketing cost $18 million
Domestic gross $48 million
Profit +10 million

Look we actually made a profit at the box office!

Lilo & Stitch released Jun. 2002

Production budget $80 million
Marketing cost $40 million
Domestic gross $145 million
Profit +25 million

A certified homerun! One more like this and you’ll squelch the naysayers.

Treasure Planet released Nov. 2002

Production budget $140 million
Marketing cost $40 million
Domestic gross $38 million
Mega Loss -142 million

Well so much for Lilo & Stitch doing well. This movie was such a money pit it sucked up all of the domestic profits from the proceeding seven years. Roy, Roy, Roy, Did you actually champion this film?

Jungle Book 2 released Feb. 2003

Production budget $20 million
Marketing cost $20 million
Domestic gross $47 million
Profit +7 million

Roy may call it a “Cheapquel” but at least it made a profit.

Piglet's Big Movie released Mar. 2003

Production budget $20 million
Marketing cost $16 million
Domestic gross $23 million
Loss -13 million

Why this was released so soon after Jungle Book 2? I have no idea.

Brother Bear released Oct. 2003

Production estimate $80+ million
Marketing estimate $40 million
Domestic gross $85 million
Loss -35 million

Well maybe it is time to pull the plug, after all this is a business. If these things can’t make money then maybe Disney should copy Pixar. That’s the conclusion Dreamworks came to. For all the SaveDisney fans hyperventilating about the demise of traditional animation, maybe they should have bought more tickets and subsidized the Roy Disney mega bombs.

Did Roy sit through any of the story meetings before these films were made? Wasn’t it his responsibility to raise concerns? Did Michael Eisner have Roy Disney in a head-lock and force him to make all of these underperforming movies? You can't argue that money wasn't invested because some of these movies had huge budgets. Roy Disney has a lot of conviction now, but where was he during the past 5 years? Why didn’t he rally his department when he had direct control over his writers, producers, directors, and animators?

Traditional Feature Animation is not currently viable. If not because of Roy, then because he did nothing to step in and make the decisions needed to improve these pictures. Now he wants to pretend he had nothing to do with their performance at the box office and blame the shortcomings on Michael Eisner. If these films had been profitable, then there would have been no need to close the Florida Animation facility. And there would have been no need to cut back traditional animation in favor of 3D computer animation. So come on Roy, the numbers speak volumes.

Remember that magic feather that you claimed was the only reason for Jeffrey Katzenberg’s success with Lion King etc, etc. Maybe you shouldn’t have thrown it away.

Please, if any one should find one or more of the proceeding figures to be inaccurate, email corrections to: savemichaeleisner@hotmail.com

 

[prberk]

The problem with this article is that it assumes Roy had more power than he would have in the situation he described (where Michael Eisner had the power to overrule him; and where David Stainton, and others probably, was required to report to Michael any conversations that he had with Roy, as Roy asserted).


There are many ways to marginalize a manager or namesake like Roy, especially when there was a rule (as he also stated in his resignation) against saying anything outside the board until he quit.

We know from media reports that Michael Eisner personally requested a "bear" movie be developed about the Pacific Northwest. But we do not know to what extent Roy was allowed to be involved in this or any other decision.

One other major point, though, to me: Initial box office success is only a part of the equation. This is best seen in "Fantasia," which flopped at the box office in 1940, and did not make a box office profit until the 1960s... BUT it created "sorcerer Mickey" and other images (not to mention numerous "reuses" of the cartoon segments as shorts in other ways throughout the company's history) that have more than paid off. This was due to strong and durable characters and art, which will NOT be the case with Back to Neverland.

Making cheap sequels and inferior characterizations actually can tarnish the "brand" (bleh) and hurt other projects by diminishing expections; whereas good stuff can make the NAME mean something, and there help later box office by raising expections. It was not long after B&B and Aladdin that Entertainment Weekly said one summer that, "About the only sure thing is a Disney animated feature." (Paraphrased.)

And I do not believe that the "Fantasia 2000" domestic gross above includes the $10-per-ticket gross from the actual first release, which was in IMAX, and was reported to be the biggest IMAX release to date at that time.

My point is that the facts above may be misleading. (And I realize that the author has issues with Roy's presentations as well.)

 

[xfkirsten]

I gotta agree with everything just mentioned - Making another Fantasia was one of Walt's dreams, to keep updating it. Like the original Fantasia, Fantasia 2000 had a limited release that really cut down on the possible profit. Both may have been box office flops, but critics loved them. By this article's argument, the original Fantasia would also be considered bad.

As for Tarzan - there's a reason that was so expensive to make, and it's called Deep Canvas. To give you an idea of how this process worked and why it was so expensive...

What happens is a CGI artist creates the background in a 3-dimensional form. Then someone else comes in and "paints" each angle of every tree, rock, etc. So instead of having a flat background, they can move through the jungle and still get the feel of a traditionally painted background. Now, you can imagine the time it takes to create these 3-d environments. But think about hte rendering time, as well. When you start to render this background for a single shot (or a "scene" as they're called in animation), the computer has to recreate all the individual brush strokes from the artist who painted the model, and account for the camera angle in the frame, etc. Long story short, the rendering time is enormous. Using Deep Canvas made the cost of Tarzan soar. It looked great! But it did turn out to be expensive, and they realized that. And that's why it really hasn't been used since.

I won't fault them for trying that at all. It was a wonderful idea, and artistically it was incredible! Financially it was a mess. But they learned from that financial mistake, and didn't go and repeat it again. I'm not going to hold it against them.

-Kirsten

 

[PeterAlt]

Hey, Animation is a mess. YES, Roy is at least partly responsible, and so is Eisner, and so are so many other people who were involved. Maybe Eisner trusted in Roy that he would make the right decisions and did not overrule his decisions. Or maybe Eisner DID overrule many of his decisions and prevented a worse situation from happening, as Eisner did with overruling many of Paul Pressler's decisons (that would have been even more disasterous if Pressler got his way for everything).

But looking even further back, during the days of The Lion King, Aladin, Little Mermaid, Beauty and Beast.... WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED to Disney Animation that it went from SUPER to DISASTEROUS? Was it that Jeffrey Katzenberg left? Roy was also the head of Animation back then. Or was it that Frank Wells died? You see, at Disney, many people get involved and they work as a team. Ten years ago, they had the dream team. Some key players were lost and its no longer the team it used to be.

So today Disney is left in a situation where they have to decide to "sell the team" (for lack of better analogy) and/or rebuild it. The quick answer is to stop the bleeding by cutting it off. First the head must go, which is why we have Roy Disney resigning kicking and screaming. Then people must be fired, which explains the Orlando layoffs. Somehow discontinuing Pixar also fits into this equation, which I haven't figured out yet.

But it really is a shame it had to result in all of this. How did it all happen?? It's a chain of events that all of a sudden makes PERFECT SENSE for me... Look....

Frank Wells dies....
EFFECT: Disney Co. needs a new Prez and Jeffrey Katzenberg wants the job. Katzenberg's ego clashes with Eisners...
EFFECT: Katzenberg is forced to leave the company...
EFFECT: Animation goes downhill
EFFECT: Roy's relationship with Eisner is strained
EFFECT: Roy leaves
EFFECT: Animation jobs are lost, Pixar deal ends

See where I'm going with this? And its because of egos that wrong decisions are being made. If they had to cut animators, they should have closed California, not Florida, where the "good" feature animation films were being made! But the company is run out of California; therefore, they choose to save their friends jobs in California and let the Florida animators go.

So we have the ultra creative Pixar without a distributor, the successful Florida animators starting their own company (without a distributor), and Katzenberg struggling with his own company (DreamWorks), with Roy and Stan kicking and screaming that Disney lost its creativity (because of Eisner) under the Shamrock banner!

Is it just me, or am I the only one who sees something very wrong and weird with this picture? Can't they all just get along? If they did, all would be perfect! We can't bring Frank Wells back to life (or Walt Disney for that matter), but his death is what really started things to collapse. The WDC needs someone like Frank Wells back in the picture to put everything back together!

 

[mkt]

the problem with that thinking is that several of the movies listed were not actually made by Disney Feature animation...

5 by my count

Only those made by WDFA would actually have counted

 

[xfkirsten]

Originally posted by mkt
the problem with that thinking is that several of the movies listed were not actually made by Disney Feature animation...

5 by my count

Only those made by WDFA would actually have counted

Yup, a lot of those were done by Television Animation. And not to say they're bad artists, they just don't take the time on a film like Feature Animation does. Television Animation is the "quick and dirty" version of animation.

-Kirsten

 

[Pat X]

Well, ok, if you want to take out the television animation films, that means the films Roy was in charge of were even less successful. The only one that made real money was Lilo and Stitch.

 

[mkt]

that's still a biased opinion...

you're not counting the Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, the Lion King, and the rest which were all made under his tenure.

 

[brisem]

Originally posted by mkt
that's still a biased opinion...

you're not counting the Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, the Lion King, and the rest which were all made under his tenure.

Isn't both sides being bias?

The Eisner side is pointing to the last few years of Roy and his failings. While, the Roy side is pointing to Eisner's recent failings.

The fact is they both failed in recent years.

 

[Mr. Tom Morrow]

My 2 cents!

Pat X your right on the money with your opening comment of ‘A lot goes into the success or failure of any particular film.’ To look simply at the budget or cost of a film and it’s domestic gross to determine how successful that film is, or how well the department, company or individual is doing is being very narrow sighted. It would be like looking at the sticker price of a car to determine if the car is a good buy without actually looking at the car and the company that produces it!

The author is correct in that ‘to believe one person can micro manage every segment of this huge company is absurd.’ With that said, I don’t recall anyone claiming the Mr. Eisner micro manages ‘every’ segment of the company. However Feature Animation is one of those areas of the company that Mr. Eisner does have a history of micro managing, which is why I’m kind of surprised he picked this part of the company to look at.

The statements of, “Michael Eisner has killed traditional animation. That Michael Eisner is the promoter of cheap sequel. And that Michael Eisner is responsible for the closing of the Florida Feature Animation department’ are only ‘inflammatory statements’ if you don’t believe them to be true. However Roy Disney, Stanley Gold, several million shareholders (me included) and countless Disney fans do indeed believe the company ‘has lost its magic and its talent” during the last few years. And by taking a closer look at the films presented in the article we can see how the above statements are in fact true.

Roy Disney was indeed the Chairman of Disney Feature Animation from 1984 until this past November. However, he has not been ‘in charge’ of Feature Animation for some time now. Things began to change in 1994 when Frank Wells passed away, which was then followed by the departure of Jeffery Katzenberg, one of the many mistakes made by Mr. Eisner that cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars, but that’s for another discussion! The author asks ‘Did Roy Disney just sit back and watch feature animation fail commercially time and time again and do nothing?’ The answer of course is no he didn’t and he’s said so many times since leaving the company in November. Sadly his efforts to reform the management of the company from within did not work so now he is forced to try and change things from the outside, publicly. Now with that all said lets take a look at the list the author has presented.

Tarzan, released June 16, 1999. I have found a total production cost of $145 million including marketing costs. The author has presented a total cost of $170 million and for the sake of argument we’ll use the higher figure. The author doesn’t give much weight to the world wide box office presenting only the domestic gross of $171 million. However, when you facture in the total world wide gross you have a total of $447.1 million leaving you a tidy little profit of $277.1 million which puts it on par, profit wise with A Bugs Life. The author presents a good question, ‘Was there any way Roy could have kept the costs down?’ Well let’s take a look at that, what are the reasons that Tarzan was the most expensive animated movie ever made? Well as xfkirsten has already pointed out they used the ‘Deep Canvas’ process for this movie, which in my opinion turned out visually beautiful. That’s one reason, but there is a much bigger factor, the cost for creative talent was at an all time high. Thanks to the success of Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin and the Lion King, Disney became a victim of its own success! Here’s how, when many of the major movie studios saw the kind of money being made by Disney for these three movies alone there was a mad rush to get into the game, one that Disney basically had to itself. From that point on it was a simple case of ‘supply and demand’, as demand increased so did the price for talent. Also, was there to much product in the market place at the same time? Well up until 1998 Disney, with the rare exception released only one new animated feature per year. However, in November 1998 Disney released A Bugs Life followed by Doug’s First Movie in March of 1999 then Tarzan and finally Toy Story Two was ready for a November release, not to mention Disney competitor’s offerings. With the exception of Doug, these movies all did very well in fact Toy Story 2 was the #3 movie and Tarzan #6 for 1999 with both placing first and second respectively for family movies that year. Sadly this was the beginning of where Disney forgets that ‘less is more’! So to answer the question, could the cost of the film been less than $171 million? I would add without subtracting from the quality of the film? I don’t know but upon closer examination Tarzan did pretty darn well! Then again, Tarzan and Fantasia 2000 were the last projects on the boards when Mr. Katzenberg departed the company!

Fantasia 2000, released January 1, 2000 (IMAX) and June 16, 2000 (theatrically). Sadly in this case I was unable to located world wide box office figures, however I show a domestic gross of $69.6 million. The film finished as the #43 movie for the year and #8 in family films behind The Grinch, Dinosaur, Chicken Run, Emperors New Groove, Rugrats in Paris, Disney’s the Kid and 102 Dalmatians, note that 5 of the 8 are Disney films, saturation? This film is perhaps the one that Roy Disney was the most visible in, as it was he who picked up the original concept and moved in forward as Walt envisioned. What you have to keep in mind here is that like Fantasia, this movie isn’t for the masses. The Fantasia movies are to Disney as the Viper is to Dodge; neither make money, both raise the prestige of their respective companies. Just like the original, Fantasia 2000 was released in select cities, in this case to IMAX theaters. This was done to ensure that the film was presented in the proper format to allow the film to be enjoyed for what it is, a departure from the ordinary. As well it should be pointed out that Disney was able to learn a valuable lessen here as it would later re-release Lion King and Beauty and the Beast but only to IMAX!

The Tigger Movie, released February 11, 2000. Again the world wide box office figures are not available and the figures presented appear to be reliable. However as most of you know this film was created by TV Animation and not Feature Animation. This was actually the fourth film created by TV Animation that was released to theaters, the first three were Duck Tails ($18 million), A Goofy Movie ($35.3 million) and Doug’s First Movie ($19.4 million). Figures shown are domestic gross only. These movies were easily identifiable as non-traditional Disney animation movies as they were derived from the popular TV animated shows presented by TV Animation, the public could tell the difference! This was fine since each movie cost between $10 and $20 million to produce and all made a profit after world wide box office is added.

Dinosaur, released May 19, 2000. This film was not produced directly from Feature Animation but rather in Disney’s Secret Labs! This was a new division of the company that was created to see if Disney was able to produce quality computer animation. Remember Disney already discounted computer animation, leaving the process to Pixar. But once Toy Story was released in 1995 and Disney saw that this new format could be very profitable they created their own computer animation department. This film was the company’s first attempt, and to appear different from Pixar the company used computer animation on real life backgrounds instead of compete computer animation. In terms of profit we’ll use the authors total production cost of $228 million. The world wide box for this movie was $356.1 million leaving a profit of $128.1 million. The bulk of the cost for this movie was the initial setup of the department (equipment, staff, ect) to work with this new format. Sadly, Disney pulled the plug on the Secret Labs following the release of Dinosaur because it didn’t meet projected profits. To give you an idea of what they were expecting, Toy Story 2, released in November 1999 made more than $129.7 million more than Dinosaur did. But why try a second film now that you have one under your belt? This was Disney’s second bad decision in respect to computer animation, both made by Mr. Eisner.

Emperor’s New Grove, released December 15, 2000. This film marked the end of Disney’s second golden age. The problem specifically for this film was that the company or more specifically Mr. Eisner didn’t knew what he wanted this film to be, which brought to the forefront a much bigger problem. This is when Mr. Eisner started to micro manage the animation departments of the company. At one point Emperor was to be a large scale production with accompanying music to rival The Lion King. Some would suggest that this was Mr. Eisner’s attempt to prove he could do The Lion King as well as Mr. Katzenberg and it’s hard to argue that point. However, following the release of Tarzan Mr. Eisner began to cut back on staff, yet wanted to produce the same quality film. The result after many story and casting changes is the Emperor’s New Grove. What was left was an average animated feature with mostly forgettable characters and no trade mark Disney music. It was a decent movie, but not a Disney caliber movie. And in a year where there was several other decent movies available, competition was rough.

Recess: Schools Out, released February 16, 2001. Another Film Produced by TV animation not Feature Animation. I show production costs to be $10 million on this one, let’s add the $14 million for marketing costs suggested by the author for a total of $24 million and after a domestic gross of $36 million we have a profit of $12 million plus the rest of the world wide gross. Again, a nice little movie produced by TV animation based on one of TV animations shows. Low cost, nice little profit and the public knows what to expect before they buy their show ticket.

Atlantis, released June 8, 2001. The animation for this film was up to Disney standards, sadly the story, characters and music weren’t. I’m sitting here trying to name the characters and can only come up with Milo and Cookie. Because the film wasn’t the usual Disney fair, it was buried under the load of movies that were available, Atlantis finished at #26 over all and #6 for family films behind Harry Potter, Shrek, Monsters Inc, Dr. Dolittle and Spy Kids. I show production cost only being $90 million, but again well take the authors figures of $155 million including marketing costs. The world wide box was $186 million for a profit of $31 million, not even close to Tarzan yet it still managed to make some money! The bigger problem is the deterioration of the Disney name.

Peter Pan 2, released February 15, 2002. This was the first of the modern day sequels to be released to the theater. Unfortunately this film was produced by TV Animation, not Feature Animation. While the animation was ok it was not the caliber that the public has come to expect from Disney. The bigger problem was that the story and the characters are for the most part the same story as the original film. I was not able to find the world wide box office numbers and those presented by the author look pretty accurate. While the movie did turn a profit, it accelerated the decline of the Disney name in feature animation. I question as many do why the need to produce these cheap sequels? Those who believe in the current management will point out that there is a low cost to produce this films and a good return on investment. But what if I showed you an even less expensive way that would produce even better return on investment and keep the Disney quality intact? I do have an answer for that, but it will have to wait, just for a minute!

Lilo & Stich, released June 21, 2002. This was the second animated feature produced by the studios in Orlando. The world wide gross for this film was $254.8 million. Using the author’s figures of $120 million, the marketing figure looks a bit high; even so we show a profit of $134.8 million, better than double the investment! But why did this film show a profit on par with Hercules? Well there was a good story with memorable characters that the audience could identify with and a good sound track accompanying the story. In other words it had all the elements of a Disney classic! Not a smash hit, but perhaps we’re on our way back.

Treasure Planet, released November 27, 2002. The world wide gross for this film was $91.8 million. The author shows a production cost of $140 million plus marketing costs of $40 million, which again seams high. The production cost I could find were $100 million including marketing which still means a loss of $8.2 million. Why did this film fail? Was it because of the story? It can’t be the story; it has already worked several times for Disney, same thing for the characters. Was it the animation? I don’t think that was it either, this was one of the best animated movies to look. Was it the lack of a good sound track? Could be, but I don’t think that would be enough to keep people away. So what was it? Marketing! The timing of the release of this film was the worst it could possibly be. Forget the fact that Disney had released Lilo & Stitch just five months earlier. Other family releases for 2002 include Harry Potter 2, Ice Age, Santa Claus 2, Spy Kids 2, Snow Dogs, Spirit and Stuart Little 2, many of which were released at the same time and did mega dollars better than Treasure Planet. Disney missed a golden opportunity with this one.

Jungle Book 2, released February 14, 2004. Here we come to the second modern day sequel to be produced by TV Animation and released to the theater. The author’s figures once again look pretty good for the domestic box office and a profit of $7 million. The problems with this film are the same as with Peter Pan 2. We have basically the same story and characters as the original, the same move with a 2 on the end of the title. How many times did the song ‘Bear Necessities’ appear in this film? Another small budget resulting in a small profit and another downgrade of the Disney name by a public that isn’t fooled. For those still wondering how the company could spend less on a film yet make more, listen closely. Do you remember when you were younger (for those of us older than 20) who went to the theater to see Snow White in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s? There is your answer! For example The Jungle Book was last shown at the theater in 1990 and had a domestic gross of $44.6 million. And since the film had already paid for itself in its initial release the only cost you would have are marketing costs. There are those who will argue, but people won’t go to the theater to see a movie they have at home. Not true, videos of The Jungle Book were out long before 1990 and the film did just fine. Need another example, the last Disney re-release not including IMAX films was in 1993 with Snow White which brought in another $41.6 million domestically.

Piglets Big Movie, released March 21, 2003. The author points out the problem nicely. By the way, with the direct to video release of Spring Time with Roo coming up I would think that Rabbit and Eyore must be a little ed since they are the only two main characters without their own movie!

Brother Bear, released October 24, 2003. This was the third and final animated feature from the studios in Orlando. World wide gross $165 million less production and marketing costs which seem a bit high again of $120 million and we see a profit of $45 million. Brother Bear, like Emperor was a decent animated film but lacked that little extra something. I would also like to point out that all three of Orlando’s animated features were done with budgets of less that $100 million each and together turned a combined profit of $464.5 million, where as the combined profit for Burbank’s last three animated features totaled a mere $77 million!

 

[Mr. Tom Morrow]

My 2 cents continued

So there’s a review of all the movies with lots of things that make you go hmmmm! As for us Disney fans ‘hyperventilating about the demise of traditional animation’ its not about the format, it’s about the content! There is a place for both traditional and computer animation you just have to know how to use both. The company, via Mr. Eisner’s decision to go strictly computer animation is making his third mistake on the subject. Because all of the major studios have now gone computer animation, in two to four years their will be a saturation of such films and the public will be looking for a traditional animation film, another golden opportunity lost! Mr. Eisner also made a mistake by closing the Orlando studios as they were creating hit movies that turned profits on smaller budgets than the Burbank studios have been able to do recently. Then again, you don’t think that the real reason Feature Animation has been consolidated to Burbank is so that Mr. Eisner can continue to keep a watchful eye out do you?

Traditional animation is viable; you just have to look at all the numbers, even from the un-Disney like movies presented in the above list. Imagine how viable it would be if all the Disney elements were present in every animated film, traditional or computer generated! As I pointed out above, there really was no reason to close Orlando studios. In fact if Mr. Eisner was looking forward as he claims the company is, Orlando would still be open and producing traditional animation while Burbank could be producing computer animation.
With that all said I was brought up that if I couldn’t say something nice then I shouldn’t say anything at all. So in that spirit I offer these suggestions to improve animation at Disney. Television Animation should only be used for the actual animated television shows and the movies based on those shows such as Recess, Teachers Pet, Kim Possible and The Prod Family. By producing these movies only, the company can continue to make modest profits from low cost production movies without lowering the quality of the Feature Animation catalog.

Feature Animation should release one, and only one new full length animated feature per year. By releasing just one new movie per year the company will be able to restore the prestige of Disney Animation to its full length animated features. The average family will actually look forward to seeing a Disney movie as it once did. The market for animated movies is currently flooded and has had a negative direct result on Disney films such as Treasure Planet and Brother Bear. Both were quality movies with good stories that good lost in the sea of family movies available at the time of their respective releases.

In terms of traditional animation vs. computer generated, the company should use which ever form best suites the individual story, this isn’t an all or nothing situation. For example, IMHO I can’t see movies like Lilo & Stitch or Brother Bear as computer generated films or Toy Story as a traditionally animated movie. I believe that there is a use for both forms when used with the right story. As for sequels, if there is a good story and there is room to further develop the characters then go for it. But don’t just repackage the same movie, slap a 2 on the end of the title and sell it as all new, like Little Mermaid II or Jungle Book II. But again, the sequels should only be produced by Feature Animation and should be released to the theaters not direct to video.

Finally, what to do with the 43 full length animated feature movies that are already in the vault? Well in terms of theatrical presentation, what if the company returned to showing one of the moves at the theater each year as it did for years? Going to the movies is still a big event for the family, an opportunity that the company is currently missing out on. As for DVD, only 4 of the full length animated features have NOT been released on DVD over the last 4 years. Anyone out there remember the days when these movies would only be released once ever 8 to 12 years on video? A concept created by Mr. Eisner but somehow lost in the bottom line of recent years! Unfortunately the company has already earned the profits on almost the whole catalog by releasing these movies over a very short period of time. Take the remaining 4 titles and release one each year for the next four years along with the single new theatrical release from each of the four coming years. That would bring us to 2008 when the company should begin to re-release 2 or 3 of the movies that were released in 2000. Spread out the rest of the catalog from 2009 to 2021 averaging 4 releases per year. Here again, your creating a big demand for a quality product.

In all cases, only ‘quality’ stories that have memorable characters that the audience can identify with should be released regardless of its format, traditional or computer animated or its distribution be it by TV, direct to video or theatrically. Oh and one more thing, for the love of Pete, please, please, please bring back ‘quality’ sound tracks to the full length animated feature, the last IMHO was Hercules. Speaking of which, anyone else out there willing to pay a few bucks to see a Broadway adaptation of Hercules? And that’s all I have to say about that!

 

[Pat X]

WOW...are you sure that is just your TWO cents...:lol: :hammer: Bad joke.

Anyways, I read in LA Times though that Roy had some part in pushing Katzenburg out the door because he felt Jeffrey was taking too much credit. The same story also mentions that since Katzenburg wouldn't approve Treasure Planet to be greenlighted, (Musker and Clemons mention this in their interview on Laughing Place.com) Musker and Clemons then took their idea to Roy and he personally okayed the film over Katzenburg's head which caused more issues between Roy and Katzenburg.

I think some of the tension between Roy and Jeffrey is mentioned in Eisner's autobiography too.

I don;t like Katzenburg though. I think he took too much credit for Disney's success and the press certainly jumped on the bandwagon. In fact some of the key decisions from past films seemd to have come from the creative people. Sebastian's character in Little Mermaid was an idea from Menken or Rice, I forget which. Before he was a typical snobby british sounding chacacter.

I think its interesting though that Katzenburg hasn't been that successful at Dreamworks overall. Yes, there is Shrek (overrated), but that is it. In fact, I believe Dreamworks is considering spinning off or selling their animation unit entirely.