current animation project?

[Kaelyn]

Anyone know what Disney's current full legnth animated feature project is? Next in line after Atlantis?

 

[All Aboard]

Treasure Planet? Lilo & Stitch? Return to Neverland? Another Voice, any help?

 

[YoHo]

I'm know AV, but I believe tht the answer depends on when you ask it. There are a couple in various levels of development hell.

 

[TheLionKing]

There is another Pooh movie in the works as well. Rumor has it that it will be released to movie theaters.

Lilo and Stitch, I believe, is coming out in Summer 2002.

 

[King Triton]

Earlier this year I saw a movie trailer for Cinderella II to come out sometime in 2002 (on video). That should be great!! I can't wait to see it.

King Triton
David

 

[Another Voice]

First off, a quick personal note. There is no truth to the rumor that claims if you say my name three times while looking at yourself in a mirror, I will appear to exact your vengeance upon your enemies. That’s just one of those urban legends, you have to go through my agent for those types of things.

As everyone has heard, the Feature Animation group is in turmoil at the moment and most people inside the group haven't really been told what’s going on. And the term “animated movie” has many different meanings these days – from the full fledged traditionally animated “Disney” movie to the films created by Pixar to not-very-direct-to-video sequels coming from overseas to the two hour long television programs that Disney is putting in theaters. I’ll stick to the “major” movies and leave the sequels and future ‘Recess’ movies to another thread.

And some of this may read like a soap opera. Disney Animation is not a happy place these days. Serious staffing changes (both layoffs and resignations) have disturbed all of the productions along with management’s general disinterest in the whole field.

‘Treasure Planet’ – the hyped next “big” movie probably won’t be released until November of 2003. This film has had story problems from the start. Rumors say that early test screenings went very poorly and the last third of the movie is being reworked. The box office failures of ‘Iron Giant’, ‘Titan AE’, ‘Atlantis: The Lost Empire’ and ‘Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within’ have thrown the whole idea of animated action/adventure into serious doubt and The Brass has grown really worried over its rumored $100+ million budget. This film was originally supposed to be a summer 2002 release and most of the animation had been completed before all the troubles began.

‘Lilo and Stitch’ – has been moved up (tentatively) to early summer 2002. This one is being produced at the Florida Animation studio. From the footage that I have seen, it is the most inventive, original, courageous, and most exciting Disney film in decades. The film is co-directed by the writer of ‘Mulan’ and ‘The Lion King’. The film is set in Hawaii, the film’s style is based on Hawaiian-print shirts (trust me, it's not like anything you've seen before and it looks great) and the soundtrack is covers of classic Elvis Presley tunes. The plot is completely out of left field and is the strongest visual storytelling since the earliest Walt Disney produced films. There are very few movies of any type coming out from any studio that I really want to see – and this is the one at the top of my list. The film was supposed to be a 2003 release, but its production was rushed ahead when ‘Treasure Planet’ ran into trouble. It would be a shame if ‘Lilo’ suffered because of that move and rumored budget & personnel cuts. I also think that the release date for ‘Lilo’ may be moved around to avoid going up against Dreamworks’ next animated release, ‘Spirit’ .

‘Finding Nemo’ – is the next release from Pixar and is planned for summer 2003 (it bumped ‘Treasure Planet’ back to winter). The film has nothing to do with submarines or DisneySea. It’s about a father fish searching the oceans for his kidnapped son. I don’t have a lot of information about this one. However, both Disney and Pixar are getting ready to play hardball over their contract after the release of ‘Monsters, Inc.’ and ‘Nemo’ could very well get caught up in that tussle. Beyond this one, the future of the Disney/Pixar arrangement is in serious doubt right now.

‘Sweating Bullets’ – the cows save the ranch movie is, well, it’s still there. Not a lot of work is being done on it. Some voice work has been recorded and some test animation has been done, it’s just kind of drifting along with the currents. Based on a management whim, it could be killed or rushed to completion at a moment’s notice. A lot will depend on the ‘Country Bear’ movie (Eisner hates C&W music) and there simply aren’t enough animators left to work on this film and supervise the video-clones at the same time. Dreamworks has a similar film in the works called 'Tusker' about elephants saving the jungle, but that film may have been cancelled.

Beyond that, there’s really nothing major that has a greenlight. Several films are in different stages (scripting, visual concepts, etc.), but nothing is firm yet. Plans are to develop at least one “video” sequel for every major Disney film and in some cases there will be several. Yes, ‘Peter Pan 3’ has already been discussed along with a plan to have a movie made for each of Snow White’s friends (I wonder if you get a set of pins if you collect all seven DVDs). And most of the sequels will be given a theatrical release, both to hype the home video sales and also to “hide” the lack of original material coming from Disney. Even worse, there is a plan to splice together bits of the cancelled ‘Atlantis’ Saturday morning cartoon series and call that stew a “sequel” for video release. My word of advice is to avoid any of the direct-to-video sequels that are really direct-to-video.

 

[Another Voice]

'Brother Bear', based on several Native American myths, is one of those films trapped on a higher ring of development hell. I've heard some concept art has been completed as well as some talk about casting. Beyond that, I'm not sure how much work is currently being done on this one.