Where did all the great Disney animated films go?

[sfmarine]

I actually like Eisner.

I hear good things about Prince and the Frog. I'll buy it when it comes out on Blu.

I prefer both CGI and hand drawn.

[quetzalcoatl]

Originally Posted by P@t_Mtl

I think Disney should continue doing traditional animation. They were the master of that process and it's a shame that it's now be replace by CGI only. I do understand Disney's point of view on this, they are a business. Pixar and to some extend Dreamworks have been doing a killing at the box office with their CGI animated features. You can't blame Disney for wanting to have a piece of that pie. Traditional animation in a much longer process and maybe now it might even be more costly then CGI? I would hpe Disney give's us a traditional animated movie once every 3 or 4 years, in keeping with traditions.

Sorry but I had to bold one part and disagree with it. They were the masters of full length feature fill animation. But I think WB holds the title for the master of the hand drawn animation back from its glory days.

[P@t_Mtl]

Originally Posted by quetzalcoatl

Sorry but I had to bold one part and disagree with it. They were the masters of full length feature fill animation. But I think WB holds the title for the master of the hand drawn animation back from its glory days.

I disagree, I always enjoy the shorts of WB but they were far from the quality that Disney shorts would also produce. The animation of Disney being feature lenght ot shorts as always been the best in the world IMO

[Joe Cain]

Originally Posted by Kizzo

As I mentioned in another thread. Disney 2D movies haven’t done well at the box office in years. I think the last hit was in 1999 or 2000 for Tarzan. The rest have range from somewhat good to flops at the box office.

I think Eisner made a great business decision to shut it down, and I wouldn’t be surprise if they decide to go back in that direction. Especially after spending 4 billion on Marvel, and with Princess and the Frog not doing well at theaters. Of course the final judgement of course will be the next animation movie.

I love this type of animation, but the mainstream isn’t interested in it anymore, especially this new generation who have grown up on Pixar and DreamWorks Animation movies.

Sure, hand-drawn animation fell off in popularity with the advent of CGI. But Disney's hand-drawn features in the 2000s weren't great, either.

My kids have seen plenty of CGI animation. They still love watching vintage Disney shorts more than anything else---heck, there was a solid month when all they wanted to see was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and those films are black & white, silent, and 80 years old.

[Batman1980]

Heh I think it's actually a curse that CGI is taking over so much, regardless of how well Pixar and Dreamworks do it. Glad at least one executive at Disney still cares about animation done the right way and I hope he sticks with it for a long time to come.

[Briscogun]

I haven't seen any figures on how much Princess and the Frog grossed versus the cost, domestic versus foreign receipts, etc., but I would be surprised if it didn't make a profit, even with the lackluster performance here in the States. The release was timed poorly in hindsight, but it was still a quality movie.

As far as CGI vs. Hand Drawn Cel Animation, kids really don't care about that stuff. They like what they like: songs, characters, animals, bright colors, goofy voices, etc. They could care less about the medium that creates it. As adults we nostagically look back with fondness on the hand drawn films, but my kids love Sleeping Beauty and The Lion King as much as Monsters, Inc., The Incredibles, and Finding Nemo.

Disney built an empire on the old fashioned cel films. They are going to be hard-pressed to just abandon that medium all together, regardless of technology.

[jadedeath]

Originally Posted by Briscogun

I haven't seen any figures on how much Princess and the Frog grossed versus the cost, domestic versus foreign receipts, etc., but I would be surprised if it didn't make a profit, even with the lackluster performance here in the States. The release was timed poorly in hindsight, but it was still a quality movie.

As far as CGI vs. Hand Drawn Cel Animation, kids really don't care about that stuff. They like what they like: songs, characters, animals, bright colors, goofy voices, etc. They could care less about the medium that creates it. As adults we nostagically look back with fondness on the hand drawn films, but my kids love Sleeping Beauty and The Lion King as much as Monsters, Inc., The Incredibles, and Finding Nemo.

Disney built an empire on the old fashioned cel films. They are going to be hard-pressed to just abandon that medium all together, regardless of technology.

Prepare to be surprised:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/...andthefrog.htm they have about double that amount to go before they make money.

Logan

[Briscogun]

Originally Posted by jadedeath

Prepare to be surprised:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/...andthefrog.htm they have about double that amount to go before they make money.

Logan

Domestic: $99,248,026 88.7%
+ Foreign: $12,663,224 11.3%

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

= Worldwide: $111,911,250

Production Budget: $105 million

And they usually use 2X budget to determine profitability, right? But they should be able to expect quite a boost from disc sales, correct? But 3 million dics is a lot of product to push... It just seems so hard to believe that a Disney movie wouldn't be profitable at some level! When you factor in box office, toys, games, merchandising, home movie sales, etc., it just seems like it's such a natural cash generating machine!

I have been thoroughly surprised, jade!

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by sfmarine

I actually like Eisner.

Ah, remember back when we hadn't heard of Jeffrey Katzenberg, and everything we complained about was "Eisner's fault"?
If they shut down a park ride, it was "Eisner's fault"...If ABC stuffed "Millionaire" down our throats seven nights a week, it was "Eisner's fault"...And after Pocahontas and Hunchback, if we were starting to notice that Disney musicals were getting repetitive, corny and melodramatic, that was "Eisner's fault", too.
Fortunately, Katz went off to form his own studio to annoy us, and we could notice enough similarities to know who to blame.

Now, not that I'm coming to Katzenberg's defense, mind you--I'd much rather indulge fantasies of electric cables and dangling shark pits --but it could be said he did have a role to play compared to the post-Lion King movies he didn't:
Yes, Jeffrey was a cynical, incompetently tasteless and untalented lil' cockroach...But sometimes, they're the most important people at the studio. When artists start indulging their own whims, SOMEBODY has to be dopey and unimaginative enough to play the Audience, and ask "Yes, but why should I buy a ticket to go see it?"
(There's the famous example of Katz watching Disney's disastrous first-cut of "Aladdin", and saying the first thing most of us would have at the time: "Y'know, Jasmine just wouldn't fall for Aladdin if he was some wimpy Michael J. Fox kid...What if he was a swashbuckling hero with Tom Cruise eyebrows?" Yeah, I woulda said it too, but I don't work for the company, and neither did anybody else here at the time.)

As we (painfully) know from Dreamworks' output, Jeff is a believer in his one philosophy, "If the last movie made money, quick, make it again." Which, if your last movie happens to be Little Mermaid, is not a bad idea.
He may have ridden it six miles into the ground (which eventually fostered so much of the audience hostility that caused them to overpraise the sloppy "Lilo & Stitch" and heap unfair abuse on the earnest-effort "Treasure Planet" in the same year), but at least the dollar-signs in Jeff's eyes kept the projects a little more focused than "Mulan" or "Tarzan" were without somebody worrying about the mainstream bottom line.

(By comparison, "Princess & the Frog" HAD Lasseter and the boardroom focused on a singleminded bottom line: We need this film not to flop, and we need it to look like the old days. Done and done...Nice when they can keep their mind on their work.)

[KubrickFan]

Originally Posted by Briscogun

Domestic: $99,248,026 88.7%
+ Foreign: $12,663,224 11.3%

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

= Worldwide: $111,911,250

Production Budget: $105 million

And they usually use 2X budget to determine profitability, right? But they should be able to expect quite a boost from disc sales, correct? But 3 million dics is a lot of product to push... It just seems so hard to believe that a Disney movie wouldn't be profitable at some level! When you factor in box office, toys, games, merchandising, home movie sales, etc., it just seems like it's such a natural cash generating machine!

I have been thoroughly surprised, jade!

I don't think it has been released in that many foreign countries (we're getting it next week), so that number is still quite low.
I actually can't wait for it. I love the 2D output by Disney (even the so called mediocre ones like Atlantis) and seeing a new one by the directors of Little Mermaid and Aladdin, no less, is very exciting to me. Hopefully it (and the other movies already announced) will do well enough to continue 2D animation projects.
And just like with UP, I can pick up the Blu-ray a month after I've seen it in theaters. That's the only good thing about the strange release dates Disney sometimes chooses.

[wallendo]

Classic Disney animation, like current Pixar animation, was based on good stories with good characters. At some point, the stories became weaker, the characters more superficial and stereotypical, and political correctness set in. In the few cases where there was a good story, the studio would add in comedic parts to appeal to kids which didn't fit in well with the story and frequently eclipsed the stories.

Remove Robin Williams form Aladdin and Eddie Murphy from Mulan the "McKenzie Brothers" from Brother Bear and what would you have? Treasure Planet was a neat idea, but it was ruined for me by the silly robots.

When was the last time a Disney hand-drawn animation had a white character as lead. Disney has definitely celebrated diversity in it's hand-drawn animation, but, the majority of their target audience in North America and Europe is white. At times, I have felt that the characters and plots have been picked by committee. Diversity is fine, but characters should come first.

Princess and the Frog was a good movie, and should have done much better at the box office, but, I think was affected by all the "race" news surrounding it (whether these events are true or just rumors, it was widely reported that numerous changes were made during the creative process to make the movie more politically correct, as a result, much of the pre-release news was negative). Also, my first impression when the movie was announced was that they were creating this movie just so they could add an African-American character to their successful "Princess Collection".

Bolt and Meet The Robinsons were both good movies, and would have done well hand-drawn.

Hopefully, Princess and the Frog will sell well enough on home video to keep hand-drawn animation going at Disney. If you didn't see the movie in theatres but enjoy animation, buy the Blu-ray.

If Disney will let Lasseter and company review their stories and characters before making hand-drawn animated films, they will do well once the current 3-D craze passes.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by wallendo

Treasure Planet was a neat idea, but it was ruined for me by the silly robots.
When was the last time a Disney hand-drawn animation had a white character as lead?

Um..."Treasure Planet"?

[HockeySlasher]

Originally Posted by AintNoSin

Is this thing on? [tap, tap] Now that Lasseter is in charge of all Disney animation, he has explicitly said that they are reviving their traditional animation department. The Princess and the Frog is probably the first product of that revival.

Your point?

The question raised in this thread was basically 'where did the great Disney animation (hand drawn) movies go.

I simply noted that a few years ago (before Disney purchased Pixar, which would mean Lasseter wasn't the head of Disney's animation) Lasseter said that Pixar and the use of CGI is what really hurt Disney. That was my theory as to why Disney hadn't had a real "hit" in the last couple years.

[Kizzo]

Originally Posted by wallendo

When was the last time a Disney hand-drawn animation had a white character as lead. Disney has definitely celebrated diversity in it's hand-drawn animation, but, the majority of their target audience in North America and Europe is white. At times, I have felt that the characters and plots have been picked by committee. Diversity is fine, but characters should come first.

I think what you are trying to say is that diversity if fine but whites should come first. Bascially they could have been chosen based on characters alone, but you will always think it was due to their race that they were chosen.

Originally Posted by wallendo

Princess and the Frog was a good movie, and should have done much better at the box office, but, I think was affected by all the "race" news surrounding it (whether these events are true or just rumors, it was widely reported that numerous changes were made during the creative process to make the movie more politically correct, as a result, much of the pre-release news was negative). Also, my first impression when the movie was announced was that they were creating this movie just so they could add an African-American character to their successful "Princess Collection".

I assume you are white since you are bringing up “political correctness”. Based on the history of this country on race and since it’s also the foundation of it in this country… African Americans have a right to be sensitive toward race issues. Especially toward Hollywood who use to present African Americans in a negative light. So there is a reason for questions concerning different creative aspects based on HISTORY... I'm sure Disney understands that and was willing to listen to the African American community on names and etc.

[jadedeath]

Originally Posted by Briscogun

Domestic: $99,248,026 88.7%
+ Foreign: $12,663,224 11.3%

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

= Worldwide: $111,911,250

Production Budget: $105 million

And they usually use 2X budget to determine profitability, right? But they should be able to expect quite a boost from disc sales, correct? But 3 million dics is a lot of product to push... It just seems so hard to believe that a Disney movie wouldn't be profitable at some level! When you factor in box office, toys, games, merchandising, home movie sales, etc., it just seems like it's such a natural cash generating machine!

I have been thoroughly surprised, jade!

I was surprised myself, I fully expected to check it out and find a profit. And to see THAT much of a discrepency between foreign and domestic was a bit of a shocker as well.

Logan

[P@t_Mtl]

Could the reasons for such bad results at the box office outside of the USA be attribute to the fact that this time it was a story base on American characters and set in an American city, not as much appeal as other stories,

Tarzan = base on a fictional character raise by apes in Africa
Hercules = the demi-god legends of Greece
Mulan = legendary Chinese characters
Lion King = base on Shakespeare
Aladdin = middle-eastern tales
Beauty & The Beast = French tale
Little Mermaid = Han Christian Andersen story from Norway

maybe the setting of the movie is just too specific for the USA this time and not hold a lot of appeal outside of the USA.

[KubrickFan]

Originally Posted by P@t_Mtl

Could the reasons for such bad results at the box office outside of the USA be attribute to the fact that this time it was a story base on American characters and set in an American city, not as much appeal as other stories,

Tarzan = base on a fictional character raise by apes in Africa
Hercules = the demi-god legends of Greece
Mulan = legendary Chinese characters
Lion King = base on Shakespeare
Aladdin = middle-eastern tales
Beauty & The Beast = French tale
Little Mermaid = Han Christian Andersen story from Norway

maybe the setting of the movie is just too specific for the USA this time and not hold a lot of appeal outside of the USA.

Wouldn't the Pixar movies do equally 'bad' (I don't know if these movies generally bombed, or not) too? They're very American oriented.
I think it has more to do with the 'stigma' that Disney has. They're mostly associated with the princess musicals. The problem is that when they do something different, they get the response that that specific movie isn't Disney enough. So they make something more Disney (with songs, and a princess) and that doesn't work either. I get the feeling that Pixar can't do anything wrong and that Disney can't do anything right at the moment.

[Briscogun]

P@t_Mtl "Could the reasons for such bad results at the box office outside of the USA be attribute to the fact that this time it was a story base on American characters and set in an American city, not as much appeal as other stories"

I think the timing of the relsease had more to do with it than anything. It was basically $100MM here in the states, which is not bad. But those foreign receipts? Was it even released abroad?

A pre-holiday release for a family film sounds good, but when you stack that up against Avatar and Alvin and the Chipmunks, it got creamed after one week. The pop-culture machine had moved on. And maybe it was just me, but I didn't notice a HUGE marketing effort being made prior to the release, other than some billboards and a few sporadic commercials. Plus, kind of hard to sell frogs as toys, you know? Lions? Yes! Mermaids? Yes! Frogs? Eh...

And, yes. Pixar can do no wrong right now. They basically have a license to print their own money.

[Batman1980]

Yeah I think the timing of the release and the lack of large scale marketing did Princess and the Frog in, hoping Lasseter learned his lesson on that one.

[Chaotic]

I watched Treasure Planet for the first time last night and i thought it was fantastic. I cant wait to see Princess & the Frog.