DVDizzy Forum

You all know Dreamwork's The Croods is only $86mil from matching Wreck it Ralph at the worldwide boxoffice. That's a hellva comeback considering all the hell they went through with Guardians! Plus Croods has been out for close to a month! WIR has been out 5 months & Croods has nearly matched it's worldwide gross in less than a month! I know WIR didn't open around the world at the same time as it's USA release, but that is no excuse, ala, 2D animation! Another reason why WDAS is way behind Dreamworks, let along Pixar. And we all wonder why Disney is keeping Frozen hidden

PatrickvD wrote:I think there are MANY reasons why the film underperformed. But a Nostalgia Chick analysis once said it best; it was avoided in cinemas because in general, Hollywood and its audience, or rather, 'the media', is pretty racist (yes I went there). When a movie has an all-African American cast (or predominantly as this film) it is automatically labeled a 'black film'. The highest grossing Tyler Perry film (granted they suck but that's not the point) is sitting at around $90 million. There really wasn't anywhere to go with this film Box Office wise... I've always thought the $104 million was slightly above expectations, considering the issue of race. Just look at live action, how many African American movie stars put butts in the seat? Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson are the only ones that come to mind really. Eddie Murphy's days are over and his work was easy to sell to white people anyway because well, come on, his stuff was kind of racist. And women? Halle Berry is probably the biggest star, but she is considered Box Office poison and Whoopi Goldberg's status as movie star is long gone. There are many respected black actors yes, but they don't sell tickets. Zoe Saldana can't headline a movie and no matter how hard Meryl Streep campaigns for Viola Davis, she still isn't getting good roles. Why would a hand drawn animated film with a black Disney princess be treated as Box Office royalty, you know... as an 'event film' when African American characters and movies are struggling so much in live action? It's just not how Hollywood works. Just my gut feeling, because I know this is a touchy subject.

That's true, for some reason I never thought about that.

Also, I agree that the "Rapunzel" tale was always going to be a big seller for Disney because it's iconic. I think TP&TF could have cashed in more if they'd kept the original title "The Frog Prince"--I always thought that tale was relatively well-known? Maybe just in the U.S.?

We all knew there would be no more hand drawn animation anyway around two years ago. At least, I think I did. Winnie the Pooh made only $30 million worldwide. Not because it was bad, but because that was Disney's plan all along. They dumped Brother Bear and Home on the Range in the exact same way. It was given a limited release with little to no promotion. The last Tinkerbell film stands at $70 million or so from overseas alone and that has gone largely unnoticed. If Pooh had received the same release strategy as that film, it would have easily cleared at least $100 million worldwide. It's not that hard, because the brand name is strong enough. But I don't think that's what Disney wanted. Hell, I don't even think the movie was released in many countries. It was dumped as another 'hand drawn is dead' excuse. So the writing was on the wall two years ago. I mean, going up against Deathly Hallows 2? 'Counter programming' they call it. Sure.

DisneyEra wrote:You all know Dreamwork's The Croods is only $86mil from matching Wreck it Ralph at the worldwide boxoffice. That's a hellva comeback considering all the hell they went through with Guardians! Plus Croods has been out for close to a month! WIR has been out 5 months & Croods has nearly matched it's worldwide gross in less than a month! I know WIR didn't open around the world at the same time as it's USA release, but that is no excuse, ala, 2D animation! Another reason why WDAS is way behind Dreamworks, let along Pixar. And we all wonder why Disney is keeping Frozen hidden

Actually, the stagnated release schedule is a good reason why their animated films tend to underperform worldwide. In this day and age of piracy, it's ridiculous to take so long to release movies in certain regions. There's a reason DreamWorks releases their films around the world at about the same time, because it allows them to strike while the buzz is still hot on that film. By taking so long to release their films around the world, as soon as, for example, Wreck-It Ralph and Brave reach certain territories, they are yesterday's news. They really have to fix that.

Not sure how accurate that is. Wreck-it-Ralph was very successful in the UK and Japan which were the last countries to show it in theaters. It mainly underperformed in continental Europe which started showing it not long after the US premiere.

DisneyEra wrote:You all know Dreamwork's The Croods is only $86mil from matching Wreck it Ralph at the worldwide boxoffice. That's a hellva comeback considering all the hell they went through with Guardians! Plus Croods has been out for close to a month! WIR has been out 5 months & Croods has nearly matched it's worldwide gross in less than a month! I know WIR didn't open around the world at the same time as it's USA release, but that is no excuse, ala, 2D animation! Another reason why WDAS is way behind Dreamworks, let along Pixar. And we all wonder why Disney is keeping Frozen hidden

If only this and Rise of the Guardians had been reversed. Not that I don't like what I've seen of The Croods, but I would say I'm less interested in it than I was for RotG.

Here's my take on this situation:

Does it stink that these employees at the Disney Animation Studios are laid off? Absolutely. They are very talented people who have made films that many of us have grown up on.

But does this mean that traditional animation at Disney is truly dead?

In my honest opinion, no.

I think the media is overreacting to this. I know this looks bleak, but I don't see traditional animation going completely away from Disney.

Case in point: Paperman. If future traditional animated movies are produced with this style, I'd be more than happy for it. Hey, I wouldn't be surprised if Musker-Clements' project takes that approach.

Then there's the Mickey Mouse shorts coming to TV. One of which has debuted online not too long ago: http://video.disney.com/watch/croissant ... 650d776d97

Granted, this IS digital, but it still looks like solid old-fashioned animation. As long as stuff like this gets made, at least we can say that Disney is still doing handdrawn, albeit on occasion this time.

And maybe, just maybe, after Iger finally steps down and someone takes his place, the studio will try again with handdrawn animation. That said, I personally believe that in order for handdrawn animated features to become viable again, someone has to take action. Some handdrawn projects that prove to be mainstream hits. If that happens, I doubt Disney would wanna miss the bandwagon.

I just don't see traditional animation completely going away from Disney. Temporary respite, yes.

TsWade2 wrote:This is depressing. I mean, if Fantasia 2000, The Emperor's New Groove, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, and Home On the Range should of all be hits instead of being a bunch of flops.

The reason why those films did poorly because they simply were not that good. Lilo and Stitch was the only one of the 2000's films that got lucky because that film was actually good. But Fantasia 2000, although enjoyable, simply couldn't hold a candle to the original, The Emperor's New Groove was mostly forgettable, Atlantis, although bold and ambitious, suffered from a inconsistent tone and story, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear and Home on the Range all were disappointingly bad.

So it's not really the medium that's the problem. Sadly, the executives behind Disney constantly look at the financial side of things and NOT the quality side of things.

Kyle wrote:Of course the usual suspects will talk doomsday about never having hand drawn back again, I still say it'll be back, just not any time soon.

Agreed. Even if we have to wait another six years, I still see Disney eventually returning to hand drawn animation. Someday.

From Steve Hullett:

http://animationguildblog.blogspot.ca/2 ... ation.html

Right on Disney, milk these sheep for every penny they have

JTurner wrote:The reason why those films did poorly because they simply were not that good. Lilo and Stitch was the only one of the 2000's films that got lucky because that film was actually good. But Fantasia 2000, although enjoyable, simply couldn't hold a candle to the original, The Emperor's New Groove was mostly forgettable, Atlantis, although bold and ambitious, suffered from a inconsistent tone and story, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear and Home on the Range all were disappointingly bad.

I don't think people ignored those films because of quality (though you'll find you're in the minority opinion regarding New Groove). After all, plenty of critically panned films, including family ones, do very well.

Fantasia 2000 did poorly, because most of its run was spent exclusively on IMAX screens at a time when they weren't as common as they are now.
New Groove didn't do better, because Disney didn't have any faith in it and so didn't put much of an effort to market it and Michael Eisner reportedly hated it, not helped by the headaches induced during its troubled production. He was apparently very close to shutting it down.
Atlantis didn't do better, because animated adventure films just don't seem to grab audiences' attention (see also: Titan AE, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Rise of the Guardians. Tarzan might be the one exception to the rule). It also wasn't helped that everybody was on a Shrek high that summer and it was the must-see family event, so Atlantis got kind of swept under the rug.
Treasure Planet flopped, not only because of the "animated adventure film" syndrome, but being released so close to the latest Harry Potter didn't help matters, either. And this is just speaking from my own personal experience, but my 13-year-old self couldn't muster much enthusiasm for it due to my dislike for Atlantis and feeling this was going to be the same sort of thing.
Brother Bear was released on Halloween weekend, which is an odd release date in itself, but also had to compete with the incoming assault of other highly-marketed family films like Elf, The Cat in the Hat and Disney's own Haunted Mansion.
And Home on the Range looked too juvenile for even 10 year olds, especially when the spots and trailers focused so much on the "oh, they're real, quit staring" gag, which is going to go over childrens' heads, anyway.

Those are my personal theories are why those weren't successful, anyway.

estefan wrote:

JTurner wrote:The reason why those films did poorly because they simply were not that good. Lilo and Stitch was the only one of the 2000's films that got lucky because that film was actually good. But Fantasia 2000, although enjoyable, simply couldn't hold a candle to the original, The Emperor's New Groove was mostly forgettable, Atlantis, although bold and ambitious, suffered from a inconsistent tone and story, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear and Home on the Range all were disappointingly bad.

I don't think people ignored those films because of quality (though you'll find you're in the minority opinion regarding New Groove). After all, plenty of critically panned films, including family ones, do very well.

Fantasia 2000 did poorly, because most of its run was spent exclusively on IMAX screens at a time when they weren't as common as they are now.
New Groove didn't do better, because Disney didn't have any faith in it and so didn't put much of an effort to market it and Michael Eisner reportedly hated it, not helped by the headaches induced during its troubled production. He was apparently very close to shutting it down.
Atlantis didn't do better, because animated adventure films just don't seem to grab audiences' attention (see also: Titan AE, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Rise of the Guardians. Tarzan might be the one exception to the rule). It also wasn't helped that everybody was on a Shrek high that summer and it was the must-see family event, so Atlantis got kind of swept under the rug.
Treasure Planet flopped, not only because of the "animated adventure film" syndrome, but being released so close to the latest Harry Potter didn't help matters, either. And this is just speaking from my own personal experience, but my 13-year-old self couldn't muster much enthusiasm for it due to my dislike for Atlantis and feeling this was going to be the same sort of thing.
Brother Bear was released on Halloween weekend, which is an odd release date in itself, but also had to compete with the incoming assault of other highly-marketed family films like Elf, The Cat in the Hat and Disney's own Haunted Mansion.
And Home on the Range looked too juvenile for even 10 year olds, especially when the spots and trailers focused so much on the "oh, they're real, quit staring" gag, which is going to go over childrens' heads, anyway.

Those are my personal theories are why those weren't successful, anyway.

Can you explain why Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons & Bolt weren't successful?

Also "New Groove" must of had some success, considering it got a sequeal & a TV series. Even "Atlantis" got a sequeal. Even "Brother Bear".

Chicken Little did fine, though its success was cut short a tad by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and then The Chronicles of Narnia a couple of weeks later. Not sure why Meet the Robinsons didn't do better. Maybe the marketing wasn't that appealing enough.

Bolt did fine, though. I think it can be considered a success.

New Groove really hit it big on video where it started to gain more of an appreciative audience. It was definitely a word-of-mouth sort of movie. Not sure why Brother Bear got a sequel, but Milo's Return is not exactly a sequel, per say. Disney thought it was a surefire hit and so, before it was released, they hired Tad Stones to create a television series based on it. When the movie tanked, they canned the show and ultimately strung the only completed episodes together to make a "sequel."

The reason why those films did poorly because they simply were not that good. Lilo and Stitch was the only one of the 2000's films that got lucky because that film was actually good. But Fantasia 2000, although enjoyable, simply couldn't hold a candle to the original, The Emperor's New Groove was mostly forgettable, Atlantis, although bold and ambitious, suffered from a inconsistent tone and story, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear and Home on the Range all were disappointingly bad.

Well, I still like those movies anyway.

TsWade2 wrote:

The reason why those films did poorly because they simply were not that good. Lilo and Stitch was the only one of the 2000's films that got lucky because that film was actually good. But Fantasia 2000, although enjoyable, simply couldn't hold a candle to the original, The Emperor's New Groove was mostly forgettable, Atlantis, although bold and ambitious, suffered from a inconsistent tone and story, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear and Home on the Range all were disappointingly bad.

Well, I still like those movies anyway.

If you like them, great.

Anyway, I still say Disney isn't giving up on hand drawn animation just yet. If anything, they're trying to figure out what to do with it. Maybe "Paperman" style hybrids IS the future of handdrawn animation.

Lnds500 wrote:

DisneyJedi wrote:Now look who's the broken record! I know for a fact that Lasseter said that he was interested in bringing the medium back.

But he freaking lied!

Oh my GOD!!! We are all sad/upset/disappointed but



Your emotions are getting the better you. It's not attractive and it doesn't make a useful conversation.

Heads into thread.



Heads back out again

thelittleursula wrote:

Lnds500 wrote: Oh my GOD!!! We are all sad/upset/disappointed but



Your emotions are getting the better you. It's not attractive and it doesn't make a useful conversation.

Heads into thread.



Heads back out again

hahahaha!

There are different kinds of 2d animation.

The animation in TPATF looks very unattractive to me. To me it looks like the animation in TLM 3, Ariel's Beginning.
Too computer-esque, too CGI.

That style looks nothing like the original Litle Mermaid film. The CGI-2d has no charm and audiences feel that.

The CGI used in Tangled is also unattractive to me, it still looks like plastic dolls moving.

I feel there is another way to go, that has yet to be discovered, but I think it is going to be in the line of "Paperman", but then even more evolved. More like moving paintings.

Marky_198 wrote:I feel there is another way to go, that has yet to be discovered, but I think it is going to be in the line of "Paperman", but then even more evolved. More like moving paintings.

Let's have this whole Fragonard discussion again as well now that we've brought in the moving paintings. And maybe a few pages on Disney's Tangled/Frozen movie title trends? We haven't done that in a while.

thelittleursula wrote:Heads into thread.



Heads back out again

Good one.

estefan wrote:Chicken Little did fine, though its success was cut short a tad by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and then The Chronicles of Narnia a couple of weeks later. Not sure why Meet the Robinsons didn't do better. Maybe the marketing wasn't that appealing enough.

Bolt did fine, though. I think it can be considered a success.

New Groove really hit it big on video where it started to gain more of an appreciative audience. It was definitely a word-of-mouth sort of movie. Not sure why Brother Bear got a sequel, but Milo's Return is not exactly a sequel, per say. Disney thought it was a surefire hit and so, before it was released, they hired Tad Stones to create a television series based on it. When the movie tanked, they canned the show and ultimately strung the only completed episodes together to make a "sequel."

Funny how you say "Chicken Little" & "Bolt" were a success. Both those films grossed $314 & $309mil at the worldwide boxoffice, yet Dreamworks "Rise of the Guardians" which grossed $303mil worldwide is conisdered the modern day CGI flop. Also, another Dreamworks film "Over the Hedge" which came out in 2006 outgrossed Chicken & Bolt worldwide $336mil. If Dreamworks & critics consider Guardians & Hedge to be boxoffice failures than how is Chicken & Bolt a success? If Bolt & Chicken were released by Dreamworks or Pixar, they would be conisdered disasters.

Marky_198 wrote: The animation in TPATF looks very unattractive to me.
Too computer-esque, too CGI.

I agree. I do like some of the animation for the characters, but it just wasn't amazing visually.

estefan wrote: New Groove really hit it big on video where it started to gain more of an appreciative audience.

I personally consider TP&TF the same way, ever since that report about it's great DVD/Blu-Ray sales back when it was released.

Marky_198 wrote:There are different kinds of 2d animation.

The animation in TPATF looks very unattractive to me. To me it looks like the animation in TLM 3, Ariel's Beginning.
Too computer-esque, too CGI.

That style looks nothing like the original Litle Mermaid film. The CGI-2d has no charm and audiences feel that.

The CGI used in Tangled is also unattractive to me, it still looks like plastic dolls moving.

I feel there is another way to go, that has yet to be discovered, but I think it is going to be in the line of "Paperman", but then even more evolved. More like moving paintings.

I disagree about TPATF animation. I thought it was fantastic, even with the CGI-ish bits. That movie was arguably a better one IMO than "Tangled". Agreed about the "Tangled" animation; that wasn't so attractive to me. "Paperman" could very well be the sweet spot. If future handdrawn animation films at Disney look like "Paperman", I'm all for it.

I actually love the effects, textures, and gradients used in The Princess and the Frog thanks to Toon Boom; it's so much more sophisticated than the CAPS system ever was, and much more versatile than cels. And don't get me wrong, I love the art of hand-crafted cels, but even Walt gave up on hand-inking because it simply wasn't practical. We've since come a long way from the Xerography days, with the ability to achieve more subtle "ink" effects while simultaneously being able to directly color the animator's drawings rather than tracing or copying them.

Unless we're looking directly at vectors or actual CG, I still don't understand how hand drawn imagery looks too "computeresque" or too "CGI." Cels were originally designed to be painted in with flat colors. Gradients were either dry-brushed in or had optical/camera effects done, and were very limiting due to being so time-consuming and expensive. Even the original version of The Little Mermaid was painted in with flat cels for the majority of the film and even used a small amount of digital coloring to experiment with the concept . . . and nobody noticed.

It's not about the coloring, it's the quality of the animator's drawings (which is often admittedly up for debate). If one thinks the drawings themselves look flat, it's totally understandable, or if one doesn't care for the color palette, it's also totally understandable. Whether or not it the newer films have any charm is debatable, but to blame the computer for sucking the life out of hand-crafted work is just nonsense. It's yet another tool being explored by the artists.