More on Disney abandoning 2D Animation (1 Viewer)

[Michael Caicedo]

Here's an article that appears today in the Orlando Sentinel on the changes going on at Disney Animation and the other studios. We have seen it coming, but here's some more insight on what's going on. I found particularly interesting the part about auctioning off the animators' equipment.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/busin...news-headlines

 

[PaulP]

!@#$...

 

[JayDerek]

this is just sad. So very, very sad....

~Jason

 

[Ashley Seymour]

Give them a worth while storey and they will come.

 

[Brian W.]

Yes, the lackluster performance of recent 2-D animation features has zero to do with the format and everyting to do with the quality of the MOVIE.

Interesting to finally see some acknowledgement of "The Snow Queen" and "Home on the Range." I saw storyboards, paintings, and sketches on the wall for them at Disney's Glendale facility almost three years ago when I worked a temp job there, but never heard anything about them again. I thought maybe they'd abandoned the projects.

"Home on the Range," if it is what I think it is, is about a herd of cattle who I think escape from a farm. It'll have, or was originally scheduled to have judging from the pictures on the wall, a very quirky, non-realistic animation style.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Yes, the lackluster performance of recent 2-D animation features has zero to do with the format and everyting to do with the quality of the MOVIE.

Tell that to the folks at WB who made Cats Don't Dance and The Iron Giant. Or the guys at DreamWorks who worked on Sinbad and The Road To El Dorado (not good movies, but not deserving of disastrous openings, either). I would argue that traditionally animated movies are a tough sell except for children and the animation-enthusiast audience. And when the kids aren't coming to see something that costs as much as Treasure Planet, I'd say that there's an argument to be made that enough people are turning away from the format to make the big animated feature a risky proposition, even with the Disney brand name.

 

[Brian W.]

Tell that to the folks at WB who made Cats Don't Dance and The Iron Giant. Or the guys at DreamWorks who worked on Sinbad and The Road To El Dorado

Or the guys at Dreamworks who worked on Small Soldiers, a CG movie which made approximately what Road to El Dorado did (50 mil vs. 54 mil), or the folks at Paramount who did Jimmy Neutron, which only did fair (80 mil), or Sony with their mega-flop "Final Fantasy," or Artisan's lousy $32 million gross on "Veggie Tales" last year.

See? It has nothing to do with the format, it's the film itself. If it looks stupid, kids won't go to see it.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

VeggieTales only cost $14 million to make, so no huge loss there. Jimmy Neutron only cost $30, so it turned a good profit. I doubt either movie was expected to do more business.

Small Soldiers and Final Fantasy were both PG-13, which gets you away from the usual animation audience of kids. The traditionally animated movies listed all didn't make back their budgets and were PG or G. In many cases, I think the failure was more of marketing than the movie itself, though.

 

[TheLongshot]

Tell that to the folks at WB who made Cats Don't Dance and The Iron Giant.

Well, I don't even remember the marketing for Cats Don't Dance, but The Iron Giant had very poor marketing and was released on a logjam of a weekend for films. (The Sixth Sense, Mystery Men, The Thomas Crown Affair)

Jason

 

[David Rogers]

Pixar gets it. Story sells.

I'm looking for the Pixar team to now complete their return of all the shoddy treatment they've received at the hands of Disney and do a blockbuster 2D film to prove their point.

Story Sells.

 

[David C Lin]

I agree. It doesn't matter if it's 2D, 3D, claymation, etc... If the story is good, then people will watch it.

 

[Galen_V]

Not entirely though. I mean, if you look at Ice Age, the reason it did as well as it did, in my opinion, is because of the fact that FOX marketed the 3D animation really effectively. After all, the story was weak at best and I seriously think it would have bombed had it not been animated in that fashion. Then again, one could argue that the movie would not have been greenlit if it wasn't in 3D, so you never know.

 

[TheLongshot]

I mean, if you look at Ice Age, the reason it did as well as it did, in my opinion, is because of the fact that FOX marketed the 3D animation really effectively.

The reason it did well was because it had a really great teaser trailer, that ended up being the best thing about the movie. If it wasn't for that trailer, I don't know if Ice Age would have done nearly as well.

Jason

 

[Edwin-S]

Disney's 2-D animation business is in a mess because beancounters, not creative people, are in control. Take a look at "BROTHER BEAR" as an example. I can almost see the meetings surrounding the creation of Disney's newest bomb.

exec 1: "Well, TREASURE PLANET was a disaster. Now what?"

exec 2: "I know....like...LION KING was a big hit....so why don't we.....like.....take out the Lions and put in some BEARS. People sure seem to like....you know......talking animals. Like....lets call up Phil and get him to write some songs that sound like.....you know...the ones in the LION KING but if he wants he can....maybe.....write new words or something".

exec 1: Great idea xxxx. Get on the blower, but there better be a scene where something dead shows up in the sky because the suck.....I mean audience.... really ate that up last time.

(Exec 1 stops to think.)

Exec 1: "Hey, maybe to save money we could just erase the animals out of the LION KING and put some BEARS in there. Hell, it will look a little funny having bears in the middle of a jungle, but it worked for Baloo in THE JUNGLE BOOK.....so why not here?

Exec 2: "I don't know if they can do that J.B, but I'll call up the remaining slav...employees and tell them to get right on it.

Exec 1: "Just make sure they come in under budget. I know...just threaten to sell the rest of their f...ing animation tables if they don't succeed".....(rubs hands)...We'll get bonuses or promotions for this nights creative work.

 

[Matthew_Millheiser]

Tell that to the folks at WB who made Cats Don't Dance and The Iron Giant. Or the guys at DreamWorks who worked on Sinbad and The Road To El Dorado (not good movies, but not deserving of disastrous openings, either). I would argue that traditionally animated movies are a tough sell except for children and the animation-enthusiast audience. And when the kids aren't coming to see something that costs as much as Treasure Planet, I'd say that there's an argument to be made that enough people are turning away from the format to make the big animated feature a risky proposition, even with the Disney brand name.

Then how did Lilo & Stitch clear $140 million last summer?

The film had a fantastic marketing campaign, and the quality of the film and generally positive word-of-mouth ensured the film's relative success. It made slightly more than Treasure Planet, Sinbad, and Spirit combined.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Take a look at "BROTHER BEAR" as an example. I can almost see the meetings surrounding the creation of Disney's newest bomb.

exec 1: "Well, TREASURE PLANET was a disaster. Now what?"

Take into consideration that these movies take something like 3 years to make.

 

[Edwin-S]

Yes. You're right. I just wrote it that way to illustrate that Disney's animation department seems to have hit a wall creatively.

Eisner wasn't kidding when he said that BROTHER BEAR was in the same vein as THE LION KING. It is not only in the same vein, it goes right to the marrow. When a person watches the trailer for BB it evokes nothing but feelings of deja vu. The whole trailer telegraphs that the Disney animation is feeding on its own entrails.Disney animation is in such a pathetic state creatively they are now blatantly ripping off their own movies and proudly announcing it.

I think that Disney animation is facing the worst crisis in its long and storied history. The crisis is even worse than their difficulties in the mid to late '70s. At least during the seventies animators were not reduced -like they are now- to re-using not only ideas but whole sequences.

I feel sorry for the people working in Disney's animation department right now. They are working for a creatively bankrupt management and facing layoffs because of it.

 

[TheLongshot]

Eisner wasn't kidding when he said that BROTHER BEAR was in the same vein as THE LION KING.

Actually, I think Dreamworks has suffered more of this than Disney, since Katzenburg has probably tried harder than Disney to emulate the successes of the early 90s. It ended up with some pretty decent animated films with horrible Elton John or Bryan Adams songs.

You can say that Disney took risks with Atlantis and Treasure Planet, but both try to hedge their bets way too much and feel compromised. "Lilo and Stitch" actually feels far less compromised than those other two, and it went long.

It is too bad that "Titan AE" was a failure. It was almost a really good movie. It just needed a bit more script work...

Jason

 

[Randy Tennison]

I think that Treasure Planet did poorly because of a horrible trailer, which reflected nothing of the story. When I bought the DVD, I really enjoyed the movie. It's a pretty good story, and well done. It's just that nothing in the trailer or ad campaign told what the story was about. It was just scenes of Jim flying in the sky on his surfboard. And those scenes looked like they were traced from footage of skydivers.

It all comes down to story, as others have said. It's not the medium. Heck, how many of us still enjoy the crappy claymation Christmas stories each year that we grew up with.

Lilo worked because it was first and formost a comedy movie. No deep meaning, no dramatic plot, just a space alien in a human world. Atlantis bit because it was a dramatic movie with comedy elements forced in.

 

[Raphael]

Maybe this is an unfair comparison, but Miyazaki's Spirited Away only had a smattering of CGI, but beat out an all-CGI film for best Animated Picture last year.