Goliath wrote:oldtimer12347 wrote:The reason the last 2 hand drawn films weren't a booming success at the box office was that poor marketing was put in those two films (especially the latter).
No, that's an excuse made up by 2D enthusiasts/Disney fanatics to avoid having to admit they were weak films. If you have a strong film, the competition doesn't matter and people will go see your movie anyway. There was plenty of competition for
Little Mermaid,
Beauty and the Beast and
Lion King, I'm sure. Besides, there is competition all year long. And Disney's PG films draw a whole other audience than action spectacles like
Avatar or
Harry Potter. Seeing how adult Potter has gotten over the years, to blame it for Pooh's poor performance is a very big stretch. They just don't draw the same audiences, so people should stop blaming 'poor marketing' as an excuse.
You could have been a little nicer on how you opened up, I sure hope you're not like this outside the Internet. I'll admit though, the strength of the films is a very important point I for the most part omitted from my first post. But I did mention how I liked Tangled better than Princess and the Frog, it's because of the writing, it was a stronger film than PATF, I could even rank it with the likes of Lion King. That's a huge indicator that the medium of animation doesn't matter, it's the quality (i.e. the story/writing) of the film. I could tell Disney relied more on the 'Oh the return of hand drawn animation' hype rather than its writing for Princess and the Frog, thus making the movie not as strong as it should be. I have yet to see Winnie the Pooh, I heard it was good like PATF, but still not strong enough (maybe even weaker than PATF). But marketing still plays a fairly important role for a movie to do well, look at Princess and the Frog, the reason it wasn't exactly a 'Disney Renaissance' success was not just competition (as with Winnie the Pooh especially), that's a small part of the reason, but the biggest problem other than its strength was carrying the 'Princess' name. Because of the 'Princess' name, the general public believed PATF to be more of a girl's movie than one for everyone, causing the boys to back off from the showings and thus reducing the box office performance. That's why we saw Rapunzel change into Tangled the following year, and it became a HUGE success at the box office. The name change worked, it's no wonder they'll be doing it again for Snow Queen (now Frozen). As for Winnie the Pooh, Super Aurora explained its situation very well, little to no merchandising and advertising. So marketing is still important, but the strength/writing of the film is a huge part of what makes Disney movies successful.
Sotiris wrote:I think John Lasseter stopped believing in the commercial viability of hand-drawn animation after The Princess and the Frog underperformed. Otherwise, there would be at least one hand-drawn feature in development. There are currently six, all of them CG.
Six? There's only Wreck it Ralph, Frozen and King of the Elves in development at Walt Disney Animation Studios (you can include the Mickey Mouse film if you think it will eventually get developed, which even then would be likely hand drawn as long as Burny has anything to do with it). So what are the other three (or two) features? You're not counting Pixar films by any chance are you? As for your first part, I think someone should ask John Lasseter himself on his current stance on hand drawn animation instead of saying 'I think', no offense, but saying that doesn't make things (whether for the better or worse) official. Who knows? You may be right about what he was thinking after all. Or maybe John Lasseter may have far in the future plans for hand drawn animation that he has yet to announce, I could be wrong. No one can say yet. But, in case you haven't noticed, hand drawn films haven't been treated good as far as writing/marketing goes since its return in 2009. I went into detail above in my reply to an ill-tempered Goliath. It's not that people didn't want to see Princess and the Frog and Winnie the Pooh for being hand drawn, it's that these films were more of a victim of bad circumstance (as far as writing and marketing goes, mostly the former) in a nutshell. They just have to put in the same amount of strength as they did for Tangled in their next hand drawn film, and that would guarantee a success. Overall, I don't think Disney is going to give up on hand drawn animation, even if not focused on nearly as much, but don't take my word for it, ask John Lasseter or even Ed Catmull to see what they think.
). When I first heard news of the new Mickey film, I thought we would see a 2014 release or something. Now these posts made me think it would probably be much longer than that before a Mickey film goes into full play, if it does of course. Someone should ask Burny himself if he has given up on the Mickey film, instead of asking what he has done so far for it. I have a feeling they're still going to try to get the project greenlit again (which again is not very easy mind you all), and that could take many years. All I can say is either wait for an official, non-blog announcement unless the blog is posted by Burny himself (meaning he himself saying that the Mickey film is 'kaput, no more, it's official, we give up', the only information the posts you linked got from him was a few beat boards made, it's still very ambiguous to call this film dead yet, because they could be putting it off until later on without us knowing, who knows?), or be patient. Good things are worth waiting for after all.
, okay, thanks for clearing that up. Do you mind telling me where you got this info though? I can't seem to find it anywhere.