Disney used to be the undisputed master of feature length animation. Even adults would get excited to see the next big thing. I remember the glory days of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King and even Mulan, then things seemed to peter off. They didn’t have the same charm.
Then when all seemed to be crap coming out of the House of Mouse, Disney ditches its classical animation department in favour of 3d films. Pixar seemed to do no wrong in this field, and Disney hoped to keep up with them. Their original partnership dissolved and Pixar wanted nothing to do with Disney until Disney made the bold move to buy Pixar outright.
Walt Disney Co., which bought Pixar computer-animation studio for $8.06 billion last May, will return to making films with hand-drawn art at its Disney Animation studio, according to Bloomberg.
Ed Catmull, president of Pixar and Disney Animation, said “At Disney, we will be making 3-D films, but we will also be bringing back hand-drawn 2-D films”.
The first full-length hand-drawn The Frog Princess, a fairy tale set in New Orleans and production will start by the end of this year.
Now this is good news indeed. I still say that Pixar bought Disney, even though on paper Disney bought Pixar. Its clear that with Pixar execs having a say on the board has seriously affected Disney’s business decisions.
Pixar is still churning out great movies, and maybe now that Disney is returning to the format that made them so loved, we can see a second coming of the Disney Feature Length Animated film.
