The Making of ENG ala' Sting

[Bstanley]

Disney was also featured on FOX News today:

Sting Documentary a Hit — Inside Disney

There's only one place where you can see a hot documentary these days — one which the general public may never see.

That's inside Disney Studios in Burbank, where The Sweatbox is having some very private showings.

The Sweatbox is a documentary made by the intrepid and talented Trudie Styler, a.k.a. Mrs. Sting, a.k.a. Gordon Sumner. The 86-minute film chronicles the misadventures of Disney's animation arm during the making, or re-making, of last year's The Emperor's New Groove.

Originally titled Kingdom of the Sun, the animated feature was supposed to have a bunch of songs by Sting, a la Elton John in The Lion King. To secure Sting for the project, Disney allowed Styler to put the whole experience on video.

Little did they know how it would backfire. After all of Sting's songs were written and the recording was proceeding, Kingdom fell apart and slowly morphed into Emperor. Suddenly, all the characters Sting had written songs for were gone, and so too were the songs.

The debacle of watching the project implode, however, became the more interesting story.

No one thought Sweatbox would ever be seen by audiences, and indeed it really hasn't been. It was shown once in September at the Toronto Film Festival, and once more in Brazil at the Sao Paolo Festival. Last month, the producers played it for a week in Los Angeles in an empty movie theatre for Oscar eligibility. But otherwise there are no plans to release it. Instead, Sweatbox has become must-see viewing at, of all places, the Mouse House, where animators are having private screenings — and lots of laughs.

Ironically, since Sweatbox was completed, its main Disney execs have exited the company. Peter Schneider, who's featured in the film, is long gone. And Tom Schumacher recently announced his imminent departure. Disney animation has been in a tailspin since Jeffrey Katzenberg left Disney and took his people over to start DreamWorks. Since then, Disney has had to watch their upstart rival trounce with them hits like Shrek and Chicken Run. Image-wise, Disney's Monster's, Inc. and Toy Story 2, have not earned as much buzz — or money.

I'm told that The Sweatbox shows the whole calamity of Emperor, including the famous phone call Sting received telling him all his work was for naught.

As for Trudie, I wouldn't be surprised if she somehow pries the film away from Disney and releases it herself. The very smart Mrs. Sting is not one to be pushed around, and if she's already managed to get Sweatbox into Oscar eligibility, I'm sure that won't be the last of it.

I know what I'll be doing this evening - kicking off a Kazaa search for 'The Sweatbox'!

 

[Sarangel]

I had been waiting for a release of this movie... How annoying that it won't play anywhere but inside Disney.

Sarangel

 

[Safari Steve]

Honestly, frankly, truly, and seriously... I don't care for Sting... I wish that we'd ended up with KOTS instead of ENG, but I got very aggrivated with him doing all of those interviews talking about how he was pivotal in the film and pretty much taking all of the credit for any success (this was before the film came out)... He's so full of himself, and I really don't think I could've handled his tantric love-god self-aggrandisement if KOTS had come out and done well... What am I saying??? He's soooooo cool... I love Sting!... don't stand so, don't stand so, don't stand so close to me.....

 

[Safari Steve]

Seriously, though... could you imagine if Phil Collins had reacted to Tarzan 's success by taking all the credit for the whole thing?

"The animators really based the whole story around my songs, and Tarzan is based on me, and... did I mention that I'm a total love machine?.... I can't dance, I can't talk...."

 

[Another Voice]

I guess you missed Elton John running around bragging about 'Aladdin' or ‘The Lion King’.

While I too have no respect for Mr. Sumner (XXXL ego crammed into a MED talent baggie), in a little bit of his defense the ‘Empire of the Sun’ was much more of a tradional musical than ‘Tarzan’ was. The songs in ‘Empire’ were supposed to be key story elements and move the plot along (like ‘Beauty’ and ‘Mermaid’). The songs in ‘Tarzan’ and ‘The Lion King’ (for the most part) were just pretty music played to underscore the emotional themes of the scenes.

Of course, Mr. Sumner is correct in that he is responsible for everything that ‘Empire’ was, which was a complete story failure. As it was “rumored”, the producers were going for a big sweeping epic, Sting’s song were called “background for naval gazing”. It’s hard to push a story forward when the elements you’re using (the songs) are pushing the opposite direction. Sting was forced on the project anyway (Eisner’s idea of using name talent like Elton John, Phil Collins, et al to improve box office appeal). Instead of admitting the mistake, Eisner blamed the problems with ‘Empire’ on the directors and order a whole new movie made (but the relationship with Sting still had to be saved).

By the way, if ‘The Sweatbox’ is nominated for an Oscar, it be probably be shown publicly in Los Angeles for the general public again.