Another Departure from Feature Animation

[Another Voice]

News is out this morning another major player who is leaving Disney Feature Animation. Eric Goldberg is best known as the head animator for the Genie in Aladdin and for the ‘Rhapsody in Blues’ segment of ‘Fantasia 2000’. He was also a major character animator on ‘Hercules’, the scrapped ‘Empire in the Sun’ and co-directed ‘Pocahontas’. In fact, it was his idea to cast Robin Williams for the Genie and it was his test animation of a Robin Williams routine that set the pace, style and mood for the entire picture. He’s also generally considered one of the very best animators the Company had.

Word is that he will direct ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ for Universal. The project is considered a major Hollywood film because of the popularity of the book and Universal will be putting significant resources into the film. Disney had fought very hard for the rights but could never close the deal. And if you look, there are a lot (a lot) of similarities between ‘Wild Things’ and Pixar’s upcoming ‘Monsters, Inc.’

 

[Sarangel]

How unfortunate. I hope that Eric finds a better place in Universal.

Sarangel

 

[DisneyFanGuy]

More crummy news for Disney. At least this seems to be a someone leaving for a Creative Opportunity instead of lost faith. The morale in their animation department has to be pretty low these days.

Hopefully we won't see another horrible resignation letter published.

AV, you have always provided insight into what's happening. Just how bad is it over at Disney Feature Animation? How bad is it going to get? Are they going to shut down a major part of their business?

 

[Quentin Disney]

Ouch. That dude had some talent with Rhapsody in Blue. As I said it before, "The writting's on the wall."

 

[roymccoy]

Loved your site! It's more polished looking then a lot "big company" sites! Keep it up, I bookmarked it.

Roy

 

[JudySue]

Any word on his wife? Susan Goldberg, while not as well known as Eric, is one of (if not the) outstanding colorests and designers at Disney. They work as a team, and I really can't see one leaving without the other. This is not just a lost, but probably a double loss for Disney.

Who's next?