Disney has released its 2007 annual report and, while it may be the dullest and least informative annual report ever (how bare must your calendar be if you have to slap High School Musical on the cover? You couldn’t even give us some DCA renderings?), it at least has a nice new image from The Princess and the Frog:

This 2009 animated release marks the first return to traditional animation for Disney since 2004′s execrable Home On The Range and is the first true animated fairy tale from the studio since Beauty and the Beast. So far, most of the film’s buzz has resulted from publicity about the lead character, Tiana, being the first black Disney “princess”. While admittedly the whole “Disney princess” marketing jihad gives me the galloping creeps, Tiana is a nice change of pace and so far the limited amount of conceptual art to be released from the film has been intriguing.

Far more interesting to me than the possible demographic breakthroughs of the film, though, are the potentials presented by its setting. Set in New Orleans during the Jazz Age, The Princess and the Frog (wow, it would be so much easier to type its previous title, The Frog Princess) promises a world of French Quarter elegance and mystical bayous, as well as “a soulful singing crocodile, voodoo spells and Cajun charm at every turn.” Done well, this could be a film dripping with atmosphere from smoky jazz clubs and arcane voodoo ritual in the decadent decay of the Crescent City.

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