Sleeping Beauty Discussion

[carolinakid]

So excited! Now all 3 of my favorite Disney Princesses will be available! What a fabulous Christmas gift!

[Jules]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYr7SbKVdGo&t=583s

If the user who posted the video is right, Sleeping Beauty is slated for a release for later this year. If that's true, it would be amazing. Maybe they'll release it for the holidays.

Regrettably, everything I've read about this YouTuber is negative, so I expect it's best if we not count our chickens before they hatch.

[Vlad]

I thought it might be fake...but I thought I'd share it, nonetheless

[Jules]

I thought it might be fake...but I thought I'd share it, nonetheless

That's fine. You did nothing wrong.

To be fair, he may be a fraud, but it certainly isn't implausible that Sleeping Beauty will turn up on 4K UHD eventually!

[Vlad]

Thank you.

There are people on Blu-ray.com who suggested that the movie could come up for the holiday season, or maybe for Disneyland's anniversary next year as well.

[carolinakid]

I could see the connection with Disneyland’s Anniversary as Sleeping Beauty Castle turns 70 next July 2025. Cinderella Castle is stunningly beautiful but Sleeping Beauty Castle always seemed a bit more magical to me.

[Sotiris]

I didn't know that Eyvind Earle was responsible for Maleficent's final color scheme.

A beautiful color design for Sleeping Beauty's Maleficent by animator Marc Davis. You may notice that her main colors here are black and red. Marc told me that red to him represented fire, and he felt strongly that this should be her final appearance. Art director Eyvind Earle had a slightly different color scheme in mind for this villainess. To him it was black and purple. And since Walt Disney had given Earle a lot of authority over Sleeping Beauty...purple it was. Many of us might think that working on classic Disney animated films was all fun and games, when in fact there were artistic disagreements all the time.

Source: http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/2024/10 ... issue.html

[blackcauldron85]

I just watched SB a couple days ago, and I don't remember if it was the Villains bonus feature (Signature Collection) and I don't remember if it was Marc or Andreas (they had footage of both), but it mentioned the red color and I believe that Earle was the reason for the change.

It's interesting that Walt gave so much power to Earle. I mean, in a way, Ken Anderson had that power with the look of the Xerox films (that Walt hated). Had SB done financially well, do you think they'd have done more of this style? And giving one artist such control over the look?

[PatchofBlue]

Had SB done financially well, do you think they'd have done more of this style? And giving one artist such control over the look?

One of the great what-ifs of history. If Sleeping Beauty had been a hit upon its first release, who knows what animated films would have looked like immediately after, and up until today as well.

[Disney's Divinity]

SB was a hit though? Its budget is what kept it from mattering.

[Marce82]

Yes, Disney's Divinity is correct.

It's in the bonus material. SB was the #2 box office hit of 1959, behind only Ben-Hur. But indeed, the budget was so high that it couldn't recoup it's cost. With subsequent re-releases it paid for itself and then some. And if you add all the merch... that movie has made a ton of money for Disney. And still counting!

[Disney Duster]

If Maleficent's fire looked like real fire, red would be a good choice. But with green fire, purple compliments it more. I have thought for a while though, her flame dagged sleeves should be green to match her green flames. Just a slightly different green so they don't get lost in the magic flames.

[Thumper_93]

Yes, Disney's Divinity is correct.

It's in the bonus material. SB was the #2 box office hit of 1959, behind only Ben-Hur. But indeed, the budget was so high that it couldn't recoup it's cost. With subsequent re-releases it paid for itself and then some. And if you add all the merch... that movie has made a ton of money for Disney. And still counting!

I'm sure that they earned back all the movie's costs only by selling Aurora's merchandise inside the Disney Princess franchise She's very popular because she's what everybody thinks about how a Princess looks like. She's blonde, wear a pink dress and her story has all the things that everybody love from a fairy tale (Dragons, forests, magic, fairies...).
I dind't know that this movie was so popular in 1959 and that it was the 2nd most popular film after Ben Hur, thanks for the info!

[PatchofBlue]

The budget's not an irrelevant factor. It's similar to how nearly 500 million would have been a happy bounty for something like American Fiction, but for a huge investment like The Little Mermaid, it was seen as a disappointment. In Sleeping Beauty's case, the fact that its gross could not eclipse its budget meant that there were repercussions in how Disney made films going forward. We never saw a film with that style of animation again. This is when we got the Xeroxing process for movies like 101 Dalmatians and The Sword in the Stone. It made its money back eventually through things like rereleases and merchandising, but the bosses want to see returns on that first round.

[Disney's Divinity]

Its budget was mentioned, but, yes, it was still a hit at the box office (something TLM-LA wasn't). Sort of the same way Tangled was a hit at the box office even if its enormous budget eclipsed the intake. Being a hit with audiences and being financially successful for the company are two different things. The former is how the film can end up making up what was lost in the short-term via merchandise, movie sales, etc. over the decades. Maleficent (the character) has always been extremely popular and I believe one of the signature theme park castles is from this movie? And the film was always in their prestigious film lines, even when they shortened the lists over time. (By that I'm referring to when Dumbo and Alice used to be in those lines, too, at one time when they would include around 14 movies in the line. Those were two of the films that got pushed out when they narrowed the number down to 10 or 12, whatever it was.)

[carolinakid]

Yes, the Castle in Disneyland Anaheim was originally envisioned to be called Snow White Castle but someone (Walt himself?) had the bright idea to name it Sleeping Beauty Castle as a tie in to promote the upcoming film. So Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland actually predates the film’s release by 3 and a half years.
Disneyland opened in July 1955 and Sleeping Beauty premiered in January 1959.

The Castle at Disneyland Paris is also Sleeping Beauty Castle.
Hong King Disneyland’s Castle was also originally Sleeping Beauty Castle, but it was remodeled and is now called the Castle of Magical Dreams.

[PatchofBlue]

Then I guess we're talking about two different things. I'm saying if Sleeping Beauty's extensive animation process had yielded good box office returns relative to its investment, Disney animation would have produced more movies using that same method and featuring a similar look, which we didn't, and that is something I think about.

[Disney's Divinity]

I think that's more because Eyvind Earle was difficult for the animators to work with and the film got behind / delayed so long because of it. That and Walt had become more checked out with the animation studio and more focused on the parks and live-action films by that time. That's partly why the delays because of Earle happened really--Walt was seldom around from what I understood.

[Disney Duster]

Disney's Divinity and carolinakid are right. May I add Robin Hood's castle was also considered for Walt's first park.

[Disney's Divinity]

Oh, really? Cool to know. I know that kind of thing must take an insane amount of money, but it would be fun if they built castles based on Beast's Castle, Arendelle, Corona, Agrabah, and so on at different parks too.