Progress City, U.S.A.

Well, I didn’t intend for this week to become the animation apocalypse, but something seems to really be poking the hornets’ nest in Burbank and Emeryville. Snow Queen is back on the shelf, newt is dead, Rapunzel has been ridiculously rebranded as Tangled, and King of the Elves is either in turnaround or abandoned depending on who you talk to.

Then there are the more insidious whispers. Whispers that the Walt Disney Animation Studios will be severely downsized, going to a model similar to the one that has occasionally been pushed on Imagineering – that of a small, centralized core of managers and key creatives still working at Disney, with the production work farmed out to contractors. When Michael Eisner arrived at Disney in 1984, Jeff Katzenberg and Frank Wells originally wanted to go to this television model; if TV animation could be completed so cheaply in Korea or China, why couldn’t this be used for expensive theatrical animation too? Thankfully, Roy Disney and others were able to appeal to Eisner’s desire for prestige and keep animation at the Disney Studios, but who knows what the future holds.

But wait, there’s more – lots of rumbles of internecine squabbling at Pixar, possible troubles with Cars 2, the studio’s noticeable new reliance on sequels, and then today I hear the following words for the first time:

Toy Story 4.

Whenever I’m at some Disney event handing out my silly little business cards to people in Imagineering or Animation, I often tell them, “Feel free to read and yell at me when I get it wrong.” I don’t expect them to be ringing me up and giving me the top-secret scoop on their new projects; I’m hoping, instead, that they’ll set me straight when I’ve really messed up. Because despite what some might think, I do not relish disseminating bad news. I’ve had no happier day in reporting on animation than when Disney and Pixar released their very ambitious production slate in 2008. And while I’ve been talking about these recent rumors and events, no one hopes more than I that I’m completely wrong.

Just keep your eyes open and your ears to the ground, in the off chance that I’m unfortunately not wrong about this. Hopefully the suits are just in panic mode right now, and things will level off like they usually do. We’ve been on the cusp of disaster before only to be pulled out of the fire, so this could just the cycle of executive indecision at work. I’ll bet that if Rapunzel is a hit, the suits will be shoving each other out of the way to see who can take the most credit for it.

Well, the bodies sure are stacking up.

First, King of the Elves gets whacked. The computer-animated fantasy based on a short story by Philip K. Dick would have been released in 2012.

Then, in all the marketing-driven panic following Princess and the Frog’s lukewarm box office, Disney shelves the long-anticipated and traditionally animated The Snow Queen. Who’s up next on the hit list?

It looks like it’s newt.

Actually, I’ve been worried about this one for a long time. I’d heard a few things hinting at this, but nothing definitive enough that I’d be comfortable writing about it. Then, today in a comment thread on the Animation Guild Blog, Disney vet Floyd Norman stated that the film is dead.

newt was first announced in April of 2008 as part of Disney and Pixar’s ambitious new animation slate. It was to be directed by long-time sound engineer and guru Gary Rydstrom, from a script by Rydstrom and Leslie Caveny. Michael Giacchino was slated to write the score.

According to the press at the time, the film would have followed Newt and Brooke, the last remaining male and female blue-footed newts on the planet. Forced together by science to save their species, the only problem was that they can’t stand each other. According to the press release, “Newt and Brooke embark on a perilous, unpredictable adventure and discover that finding a mate never goes as planned, even when you only have one choice. Love, it turns out, is not a science.”

So, that’s out. But hey, at least we get Winnie-the-Pooh and Cars 2. Who wants to bet that newt’s summer 2012 release spot goes to another Pixar rehash, Monsters, Inc. 2?

UPDATE: I’ve had a couple of people tell me that King of the Elves has not actually been completely abandoned, but that it’s still in turnaround for retooling. I know this had been the fact at one point, but other informed sources have said that it’s no longer actively being worked on. If anyone can clarify this, drop me a line. In stranger news, I’ve had two sources independently hint to me that Cars 2 is actually having production problems, and I’ve seen that rumor posted anonymously today on the Animation Guild’s blog. Whispering campaign or fact, I don’t know, but it’s something to keep an eye out for.

It’s been some time since we’ve discussed the upcoming Disney animation slate in any detail, and even longer since I updated the site’s list of animated projects. We’ve mentioned some of the schedule shifts that have occurred in the year and a half since Disney announced their ambitious development plans; most notably, Cars 2 was bumped up to a 2011 opening, pushing Gary Rydstrom’s newt back to 2012. But as the months pass, the crews at Disney and Pixar continue to develop new material. We’ve had one official announcement, 2011’s traditionally animated Winnie-the-Pooh, but there are several other new projects waiting in the wings.

First, though, a look at some of the projects that have been announced already. Disney will soon debut Princess and the Frog, its first traditionally animated feature since 2004. Hopes are high that this December release will revive Walt Disney Animation Studios, and pave the way for many 2D features to come. Early indicators are good; the screening of the film’s first act at the D23 Expo went over like gangbusters, and I was pleasantly surprised by the strength of the parts we were shown. I still have some qualms about some of the character design and animation (again, too loosey-goosey for my tastes), but the general aesthetic of the film looks great and the story seems to be extremely tight and lean. The music’s good, too.

Rapunzel is looking lovely too…

Work on Rapunzel continues for 2010; as that long-in-the-making film moves from story to production, the scuttlebutt coming out of Burbank has become increasingly optimistic. After the story problems that plagued the film for so long, one hopes that things really start to click. The development art that has been released looks top notch.

The first new film to add to our list is the aforementioned Winnie-the-Pooh. Directors Steve Anderson and Don Hall originally brought this project to John Lasseter as an idea for a direct-to-video feature. Lasseter, who apparently has an affinity for the Disney Pooh featurettes from the 1960s and 70s, liked the idea so much he greenlit it for a theatrical release. This came as something of a surprise to observers, who are used to Disney targeting this character directly at the preschool crowd. Lasseter seemed aware of this during his presentation at the D23 Expo, asking the audience to “trust him” that the film won’t be just for little kids, and that we “won’t believe how funny this thing is.” Indeed. Just kiddin’, I love ya Johnny boy.

I’ve always assumed that I was alone in my incredible and all-consuming disdain for the Pooh character and his cohorts. I’ve never liked Pooh, even as a kid. Maybe it’s because each inhabitant of the Hundred Acre Wood seems straight out of a different chapter of the DSM-IV. Anyway, it was amusing to hear both the muted reaction to the Pooh news at D23 and then to watch the documentary the boys and hear Richard and Robert Sherman talk about how they couldn’t stand the stories either. Don’t get me wrong – Winnie-the-Pooh will most likely be highly enjoyable in the end. I just can’t get myself excited about it right now.

What does excite me is the approach they’re taking to the film, which is hand-drawn and will incorporate watercolored backgrounds like the original films. They’re also mining the original Pooh books for five stories that will be strung together around a central narrative. Disney Legend Burny Mattinson, who worked on the original animated featurettes, returned to Disney to guide the story department in the picture’s development. Winnie-the-Pooh will hit theaters in the spring of 2011, filling a gap in Walt Disney Animation Studios’ production slate.

Another previously announced film in development is 2012’s King of the Elves; based on the Philip K. Dick short story, it’s rumored to be computer-animated. The Animation Guild blog mentioned recently that the story is currently being retooled, bringing some changes and the departure of at least one director. Aaron Blaise and Robert Walker were originally announced to direct, and it seems that Blaise has left the film for reasons unknown.

From here, we enter the realm of speculation. There have been a number of projects in and out of development at Disney over the last decade, and these are starting to pop up again as contenders for the next wave of releases. The first of these is The Snow Queen, which was mentioned by Disney producer Don Hahn as in development as recently as the D23 Expo. Hahn showed a slide of concept art from the film during one of his panel discussions, and offhandedly mentioned the project as something they’re working on.

This is an awful, awful picture I took of the concept art from The Snow Queen at D23. If you could see it, it would show a castle embedded in an icy mountain lit by aurorae. The striking piece was created by artist Paul Felix; if you have a better picture from this presentation, would you send it along?

The Snow Queen was in development at Disney from roughly 2000-2003, when it was scuttled because Disney management wanted to get out of the fairy tale game and into the “hip and edgy” business. The project was originally intended for directors Paul and Gaetan Brizzi for when they were finished with Don Quixote, but when that animated adaptation was canceled in early 2001 the Brizzis departed the studio. The Snow Queen was then handed off to Dick Zondag and Dave Goetz to direct, but the project eventually went into turnaround in the middle of 2002. During this break, animator Glen Keane left the project in order to direct his own film (which, eventually, turned out to be Rapunzel).

Character design for The Snow Queen by Harald Siepermann. This design is from the earlier attempt at producing this story.

The film spiraled into development hell as management decided to retool it as a computer-animated feature, and around 2003 it simply faded away. In early 2006 it was announced that composer Alan Menken and lyricist Glen Slater were developing a stage musical based on The Snow Queen for Tokyo Disneyland; it was canceled abruptly at the end of that year, possibly when the film version went back into development. Cut to around 2007, when John Lasseter had arrived at Disney Feature Animation and was reassessing the development slate. Around that time, work began anew on The Snow Queen. Current rumors online suggest either Mike Gabriel or Dean Wellins are involved to direct. Menken has confirmed in the European press that he’s writing the songs for the film.

If Lasseter’s arrival at Disney brought new life to some projects, it meant the end of others. So it was for Joe Jump, a computer-animated film that was junked in 2008 after about four years of development. The film, a story of a videogame character from the early 1980s who tries to make his way in the modern high-tech gaming world, got some positive buzz when it was going through the story process around 2006. Story artist Sam Levine was leading the project, with designer Joe Moshier helping create the film’s look. In an interview, character designer Jim McPherson spoke about his work on the film:

“…I was appointed to join the Visual Development Team at Walt Disney Feature Animation to work with the director Sam Levine and character designer Joe Moshier on a film called Joe Jump. All the characters were developed in collaboration of drawing and modeling done in ZBrush 2. We translated a more graphic character style into 3D, slightly leaning towards “Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom” or UPA cartoons, but with a heavy influence of Milt Kahl and Tom Oreb’s work. Unfortunately, the movie was cancelled after 4 years in development. I hope to eventually get permission to show some of the characters. There were cyborg lizards, heavily armored heroes and amazon women designed in a new style.”

Joe Jump was canceled in order to focus resources on projects that were further along in the development pipeline, but now the blog of the Animation Guild reports that the pixelated hero lives again. Further information is unavailable, but look for the CGI Joe Jump and the (hopefully) hand-drawn The Snow Queen to shuffle into those 2013 and 2014 release slots at some point.

What comes after that? Your guess is as good as mine. Online sources have speculated for several years that Disney has been working on an adaptation of the ancient Hindu epic Ramayana, although I can’t find any compelling source for this. What does lend some credibility to that rumor, aside from Disney’s increased efforts in India over recent years, is their under-the-radar interest in the purchase of a publisher of graphic novels centered on Hindu mythology. No one seems to have noticed this in the shadow of the Marvel deal, but it could indicate that the rumors of Ramayana are not all fanboy speculation. Allow me to say, Disney folk, if you are thinking about this… I really hope you make it work somehow because it could be absolutely killer.

There are certainly other abandoned projects from the early part of this decade that deserve a second chance with the new management; Barry Cook’s My Peoples, Ron Clements and John Musker’s Fraidy Cat, or – please, please, please – the Brizzis’ Don Quixote. Hopefully there’s a lot of room at WDAS for new productions; that will keep a lot of animators employed and make me very, very happy.

John Lasseter and Disney Studios chief Dick Cook set animation fandom aflame yesterday when they hosted a presentation in New York City to detail the next five years of animated films from Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. The press conference was unusually detailed for the typically secretive world of animation – Cook pointed out that it was the first strictly animation-related presentation from Disney in more than a decade.

In all, ten new theatrical releases were announced. Scheduled to arrive in theaters twice annually, the slate includes four films from WDAS and six features from Pixar. Aside from 2011, when Pixar will release two films, Pixar films will arrive during the summer and Disney Animation productions during the holidays. In addition to the new films, Toy Story and Toy Story 2 will be re-released in 3-D. Also announced were four direct-to-video Tinkerbell films – one each for the next four years – from the overhauled DisneyToon Studios. The theatrical slate, in brief:

2008

WALL*E – Pixar Animation Studios, June 27th, 2008 – Directed by Finding Nemo’s Andrew Stanton, WALL*E is the last robot on Earth when he suddenly falls in love and goes on an adventure to save the world.

Bolt – Walt Disney Animation Studios, November 26th, 2008 – Directed by Chris Williams & Byron Howard and released in 3-D, Bolt follows a canine television star on a cross-country adventure where his on-camera superpowers neglect to translate into the real world.

2009

Up – Pixar Animation Studios, May 29th, 2009 – Also released in 3-D and directed by Pete Docter, Up is about an elderly man who is beginning to think that life has passed him by when he embarks on a perilous journey with an eight year old Wilderness Explorer.

Toy Story in 3-D – Pixar Animation Studios, October 2nd, 2009 – The original John Lasseter film has been converted to 3-D for its re-release.

The Princess and the Frog – Walt Disney Animation Studios, Christmas 2009 – The only traditionally animated feature on this list, and directed by Disney vets Ron Clements and John Musker, Princess reimagines the classic fairy tale in jazz-age New Orleans and features Disney’s first African-American princess.

2010

Toy Story 2 in 3-D – Pixar Animation Studios, February 12th, 2010 – John Lasseter’s first sequel has also been converted to 3-D for its re-release.

Toy Story 3 – Pixar Animation Studios, June 18th, 2010 – Produced in 3-D and directed by Lee Unkrich, the second Toy Story sequel follows the toys as Andy prepares to leave for college.

Rapunzel – Walt Disney Animation Studios, Christmas 2010 – Another 3-D release, this re-telling of the well-known fairy tale is directed by renowned Disney animator Glen Keane and Dean Wellins.

2011

newt – Pixar Animation Studios, Summer 2011 – First-time director Gary Rydstrom, previously a sound designer for Pixar and Lucasfilm, will bring us this 3-D film about two endangered newts who are brought together by scientists to repopulate their species – only they can’t stand each other.

The Bear and the Bow – Pixar Animation Studios, Holiday 2011 – Brenda Chapman becomes Pixar’s first female director with this Scottish tale of magic and fantasy. Produced in 3-D, the film tells of Merida, a Scottish princess who defies her parents and in turn endangers her father’s kingdom.

2012

Cars 2 – Pixar Animation Studios, Summer 2012 – Though long rumored, this film is perhaps the most surprising on the list. Pixar producer Brad Lewis will direct this 3-D sequel, in which our automotive protagonists embark on an adventure overseas.

King of the Elves – Walt Disney Animation Studios, Holiday 2012 – Surprising many, this film had been rumored since Disney optioned the Philip K. Dick story upon which it will be based. Directed by Aaron Blaise & Robert Walker, and produced in 3-D, this odd fantasy tale concerns “an average man living in the Mississippi Delta, whose reluctant actions to help a desperate band of elves leads them to name him their new king.”

We’ll be describing these films in greater detail in upcoming posts, but I have a few thoughts. First, I can’t help but notice that there is unfortunately only one traditionally animated film on the list. It had previously been hinted that Disney had another 2-D project in the works, but as this schedule is fairly crowded I can’t imagine it surfacing before 2013. That’s a long time to wait for some old-school animation, folks!

The release pattern is also interesting. Pixar gets what is assumed to be the plum summer timeslots, not to mention two releases in 2011. It’s also worth noting that all the Pixar films have single directors while all Disney films have two; while this is typical of traditional animation, does it indicate that Lasseter doesn’t yet have faith in Disney directors to have a singular artistic vision?

Troublesome to me is the fact that after WALL*E, all but the traditionally animated Princess are going to be released in “Disney Digital 3-D.” While Disney has been pushing this technology hard since Chicken Little in 2005 as a way to motivate families to choose theatrical releases over home video, I continue to worry that it will remain a gimmick and a fad while neglecting to service the story of the films whatsoever. It was an innovation driven by marketers rather than filmmakers, and despite Lasseter’s enthusiasm for the process I hope that traditional standard releases continue. Maybe I’m a fuddy-duddy (and at such an early age, too), but I’d rather enjoy the art of the animation without having to deal with all the artifacts of the 3-D process (not to mention that I don’t want to wear the sodding glasses either!).

Another interesting aspect of the announcement is how it fleshes out long-circulating rumors, such as the hints that Rydstrom and Chapman were going to be assigned features and the odd mention in one news article mentioning a new Scottish princess in the Disney pantheon. Yet it also brings up questions – where is John Carter of Mars? And while Brad Bird’s Pixar-produced live action 1906 isn’t mentioned, where the frak is Incredibles 2? Such a project has long been denied, but it’s widely asserted among fans that The Incredibles is far more worthy of a sequel than Cars. While Cars 2 is obviously timed to coincide with the opening of the new Carsland at California Adventure in 2011, and inspired by the huge marketing windfall that has followed the original film, one would hope that Pixar isn’t starting to pump out sequels just because of merchandising opportunities. Who cares? I just want Incredibles 2.

In any case, it’s a bold plan and shows the real confidence Disney now has in animation. This is a very ambitious slate, unmatched since the heyday of the 1990’s animation boom. Let’s hope they can just keep all those balls in the air this time around. The best news is that Disney and Pixar have a great mix of seasoned talent and new directors all working on a fairly unique series of concepts with the committed, hands-off support of management. Even the DisneyToons studio has abandoned the unwanted direct-to-video sequel market, with Cook promising more films on the way but only spinoffs or original concepts. It’s an exciting time, and I can’t wait to see what they have in store.