No More 2D Animated Films At Disney

[Drtooth]

Like I said before, Princess and the Frog flopped because it went up against the second Chipmunks movie. Disney stupidly gave that hideous Christmas Carol movie the stronger Thanksgiving slot because, at the time, Christmas movies didn't automatically mean failure. Not to mention it was a princess film and that somehow emasculates 5-10 year olds, which is why Tangled had to be called Tangled and marketed like a Shrek wannabe instead of what it was. And yes, there's also a bit of race that enters into that.

But there's no reason why Pooh should have failed. It was a clear younger alternative to the Harry Potter film, and it shouldn't have been completely eclipsed by it. But then again, WTP has been Flanderized on purpose by Disney to be a preschooler franchise, and preschooler movies are instant fail. It was a beautiful film, it should have had an audience... it didn't.

The unfair thing is to compare both movies to Wreck it Ralph (which doesn't get nearly the merchandising it should outside The Disney Store) and Tangled. They were stronger films because they were stronger concepts. Ralph ensured an adult audience of gamers and 1980's nostalgia heads, and they were treated to a sweet story with the video game cameos being icing. I haven't seen Tangled, but something tells me it's a stronger film storywise than Princess and the Frog.

The real sad thing is, due to the poor performance of Pirates, Frankenweenie, and Paranorman (the last of which was released in a dump month), we're probably not going to see any studios warm up to stop motion either.

 

[jvcarroll]

Like I said before, Princess and the Frog flopped because it went up against the second Chipmunks movie. Disney stupidly gave that hideous Christmas Carol movie the stronger Thanksgiving slot because, at the time, Christmas movies didn't automatically mean failure. Not to mention it was a princess film and that somehow emasculates 5-10 year olds, which is why Tangled had to be called Tangled and marketed like a Shrek wannabe instead of what it was. And yes, there's also a bit of race that enters into that.

But there's no reason why Pooh should have failed. It was a clear younger alternative to the Harry Potter film, and it shouldn't have been completely eclipsed by it. But then again, WTP has been Flanderized on purpose by Disney to be a preschooler franchise, and preschooler movies are instant fail. It was a beautiful film, it should have had an audience... it didn't.

The unfair thing is to compare both movies to Wreck it Ralph (which doesn't get nearly the merchandising it should outside The Disney Store) and Tangled. They were stronger films because they were stronger concepts. Ralph ensured an adult audience of gamers and 1980's nostalgia heads, and they were treated to a sweet story with the video game cameos being icing. I haven't seen Tangled, but something tells me it's a stronger film storywise than Princess and the Frog.

The real sad thing is, due to the poor performance of Pirates, Frankenweenie, and Paranorman (the last of which was released in a dump month), we're probably not going to see any studios warm up to stop motion either.

I don't buy the marketing or timing cop-outs. Tangled and Princes & the Frog also suffered from muddled stories and that was evident in the ads. I don't know why Pooh failed. All I can say is for some reason I still haven't seen it. I respected the attempt, but it didn't look very interesting.

If Disney would release an animated picture with quality storytelling like Little Mermaid, Beauty & the Beast or Lion King, they'd have another hit. The problem is that they keep making Pocahontas, Brother Bear and Home on the Range level fare.

 

[Drtooth]

By that logic, the second Chipmunks should have failed. Quality seldom enters into it. Tangled made a respectable amount at the box office, but only after they kept screwing around with the film's marketing so boys would like it. But they made the right choice that time and gave the film a proper before Thanksgiving release. We all know, the week of Thanksgiving leads to the week after Thanksgiving where no one sees a film at all until near Christmas time. That's why The Muppets opened strong, but failed to keep up. I'm quite sure if Disney switched release dates of P&F and ACC, P&F would have made a justifiable profit. But instead, they went with a movie no one wanted to see and doomed P&F to suffer against more irritatingly kid appeal Chipmunks 2. Again, what would you rather see if you were a 5 year old boy? An emasculating Princess film or a bunch of squeaky rodents making pop culture jokes you really don't understand?

But the real problem? The pressure. There was TOO much pressure for this film to succeed (similar problems with the last Superman movie). It took forever to get the film into production, they had to keep bowing to pressure groups complaining the movie was too racist or too white. They constantly had various people breathing down their necks with the true goal of making yet another princess doll to sell to kids all the while trying to pay lip service to the 2-D animation studio the last guy destroyed by lackluster concepts in dump months. Toy, incorporating an African American Princess, 2-D animation... story must've been way down on the list.

As I always say, Disney gets flack for making princess movies and then they get flack for not making princess movies. Why are Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin their classic revival hits? Because they just found the formula and it worked for those movies. Then Pocahontas came along, they pushed for Oscar Bait, and without the wacky sidekicks or even the least amount of fun (tossing it away for a hamfisted moral), the formula was basically there screaming and flailing to be noticed. Then they had the unfortunate task of having to do not princess movies (of which Lion King and Lilo and Stitch were the only successful ones), and then once they went back to Princesses (P&F and Tangled), they had to play with subversions and aversions, and they spent so much time playing with something, the original charm got lost.

So Disney can't do anything because they'll be chided no matter what, and constantly is compared to the first 4 films of the 90's, which were, let's face it... flukes. As in they were organic and not heavily labored to stand up to anything.

 

[jvcarroll]

By that logic, the second Chipmunks should have failed. Quality seldom enters into it. Tangled made a respectable amount at the box office, but only after they kept screwing around with the film's marketing so boys would like it. But they made the right choice that time and gave the film a proper before Thanksgiving release. We all know, the week of Thanksgiving leads to the week after Thanksgiving where no one sees a film at all until near Christmas time. That's why The Muppets opened strong, but failed to keep up. I'm quite sure if Disney switched release dates of P&F and ACC, P&F would have made a justifiable profit. But instead, they went with a movie no one wanted to see and doomed P&F to suffer against more irritatingly kid appeal Chipmunks 2. Again, what would you rather see if you were a 5 year old boy? An emasculating Princess film or a bunch of squeaky rodents making pop culture jokes you really don't understand?

But the real problem? The pressure. There was TOO much pressure for this film to succeed (similar problems with the last Superman movie). It took forever to get the film into production, they had to keep bowing to pressure groups complaining the movie was too racist or too white. They constantly had various people breathing down their necks with the true goal of making yet another princess doll to sell to kids all the while trying to pay lip service to the 2-D animation studio the last guy destroyed by lackluster concepts in dump months. Toy, incorporating an African American Princess, 2-D animation... story must've been way down on the list.

As I always say, Disney gets flack for making princess movies and then they get flack for not making princess movies. Why are Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin their classic revival hits? Because they just found the formula and it worked for those movies. Then Pocahontas came along, they pushed for Oscar Bait, and without the wacky sidekicks or even the least amount of fun (tossing it away for a hamfisted moral), the formula was basically there screaming and flailing to be noticed. Then they had the unfortunate task of having to do not princess movies (of which Lion King and Lilo and Stitch were the only successful ones), and then once they went back to Princesses (P&F and Tangled), they had to play with subversions and aversions, and they spent so much time playing with something, the original charm got lost.

So Disney can't do anything because they'll be chided no matter what, and constantly is compared to the first 4 films of the 90's, which were, let's face it... flukes. As in they were organic and not heavily labored to stand up to anything.

I disagree.

The Princess & the Frog and Tangled suffered from really bad storytelling and poor character development. You can certainly claim the Chipmunks suffered from that too, but they had the advantage of history behind them. People already knew who they were so the writers could be lazy. They also were following a paint by number toon-to-CG popular trend that Garfield, Scooby Doo and others have benefited from. It doesn't always work, but more often than not it does.

 

[Drtooth]

But Tangled did do very well at the box office. There's something to the release date and marketing there. P&F could have made just a little more money had it got a better release date. I don't think story and character development matter as much to the intended Barbie doll buying demographic. Look how many crappy films us adults have nostalgia goggles on for. People actually like We're back: A Dinosaur Tale and unironically enjoy Tom and Jerry the movie!

I do agree that there's something to a film that should have been well done when it wasn't being considered a failure when a movie that's meant to be a lazy, cynical cash grab anyway has such low standards that you actually look for the good qualities. I mean, I actually liked Smurfs because I thought it was going to be so bad that it would have worked as childhood killing shock therapy, and was amazingly shocked it wasn't even close as terrible as I thought it would be. All the while writing off the dumbness already shown in trailers. Remember, I was the one railing the most against the film. Still pretty lousy, though. Though I don't honestly get too disappointed by films I think I'm going to like (though I find missing opportunities from time to time). TV shows maybe. I really wish Rules of Engagement didn't suck so bad that I intensely hate it. I really wanted to like a show with Patrick Warburton and David Spade, consider the Disney movie they're in I'm a huge fan of.

As for the 2-D movies... did production stop on the big Mickey and Co project they were planning? I know that the first time they vowed not to do 2-D, that was all Eisner and it was all based on the overreaction of Treasure Planet flopping. Brother Bear and especially Home on the Range were meant to be flops. That was them taking a dive and just cranking out stuff as an excuse to say "we just don't know what's wrong, except they aren't CGI." Even though Dinosaur was a hit for some reason, and Chicken Little did so so, they weren't really having the luck they thought they would with CGI that wasn't Pixar. No wonder Disney bought them out.

 

[jvcarroll]

But Tangled did do very well at the box office. There's something to the release date and marketing there.

Er...not really. While it made some box office dough, it fell $60M short of it's production budget domestically. That is not doing "very well" at the box office by any measure. They had a healthy release date and there was sufficient marketing in place. It just wasn't a very good movie. The songs were forgettable and the performances were too. Name a special moment beyond the few animal sidekick asides. Ultimately the public had very little to latch onto not matter what the marketing.

This case keeps getting made for John Carter too. Once and for all, the marketing wasn't great, but neither the title change nor the ads were responsible for the lagging box office. The movie tries to tell so many different stories yet neglects to tell even one of them well. It's enjoyable, but the direction of the piece doesn't lead the audience to really care about the conflict or the characters. This = Bad Writing. I have no doubt that these pictures would have been hits under Brad Bird's direction - - no matter what the marketing looked like. Seriously, try to cut a better trailer to John Carter. It really can't be done. It still would have fizzled with a restored title and cushy summer release date. Keep in mind, I'm saying this about a movie I own on Blu-ray. There's a lot to like about it. It's also a good example of directorial hubris.

 

[Drtooth]

I fail to see why they only care about domestic. It made most of its money overseas, granted. I don't see why that's not considered successful enough. My favorite story? The low budget Powerpuff Girls movie made back just over it's budget, but was considered too much of a flop, they didn't want to release it overseas theatrically.

But above all, the thing that annoys me about Disney whining about how one of their animated movies are under-performing? The fact that half their classic Walt made crown jewels were pretty much financial failures. Pinocchio? Flop (mainly due to the war). Fantasia? Big flop the critics and audiences hated for being dumbed down and too pretentious. Alice in Wonderland, the very same version that everyone pilfers for parodies and halfbaked adaptions (leading to the confusion that Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are in that book instead of Through the Looking Glass). The film that forever linked Mad Hatter with Ed Wynne. Not only did it flop, but Disney hated it. And worst of all, Sleeping Beauty. The film that...aw heck... Disneyland was completely founded on that movie. It flopped so bad, Disney almost got out of the animated film business altogether with that one. And each and every one of those is considered a massive classic, and a staple of merchandising.

The point is, Disney movies... sure, they make money theatrically, but they never end it right there. The real money is home video, rereleases, and merchandising. The real flops never find a place in either of them, but Disney films continue to turn profits well after their original releases. Disney films are essentially meant to be discovered on DVD. Even the bomb films everyone initially hated get second chances. Even the ones Disney likes to Snub (Black Cauldron and Emperor's New Groove, which actually did make money).

 

[mr3urious]

Several veteran animators have unfortunately been laid off by Disney.

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/b...heir-hand-drawn-animation-division-81043.html

 

[Drtooth]

I like how they're firing half the home video staff because they screwed up the DVD releases and just put the special features all on Blu-ray. No one's going to buy a vanilla disk with just the movie for 20 bucks. They're going to wait for the day when they'll never get a Blu-Ray player and just get everything off Netflix (and all the while, they whine about piracy... which accounts to 0% of potential audiences. Pirates who can't pirate often just do without).

But really... 2 non-CGI animated movies don't do extremely well (only one of the two even flopped) and they panic like chickens with their heads cut off. As I said before... Gee... P&F might have done better had you not released it opposite the Chipmunks and Avatar. Seriously... NO ONE wanted to see that horrid Christmas Carol retelling. If they got that slot, maybe we'd be looking at a ...gasp... THIRD not-CGI animated movie since 2008 before you call it quits. And it's your own fault for babying the WTP franchise up.

Now that I think of it, as much as we hated the "cheapquels," some of them should have still been in production. They really should have reconsidered DTV movies featuring characters that aren't Tinkerbell or Planes (which is jumping the gun... 3 movies? The first one didn't even come out first).

Yeah, I know we all need to do some rebranding to save all of the exact money that you can make off of Avengers Toys alone. But come on... at least try one more 2-D film before you call defeat.

 

[jvcarroll]

Honestly, traditional animation needs a true artist to helm future projects. Someone with a comprehensive vision. Maybe this will have to take place outside of the studio system and that could actually make them better. Tim Burton's greatest achievement is bringing stop-motion animation back to the mainstream. For that, I can overlook his decade or so of meh.