good read.

I still miss the large bunny and pirate cat, but I'm sure that "American Dog" will be great.  And, are they definitely sticking with "American Dog" and not "Hollywood Dog"?  Terrific article, Jim!

WOW! The story about MTR has really cheered me up. It's a perfect example of Lasetter giving power back to the creators and for him to say he's really proud of it is a big deal.

Thanks Jim, a great article today!

Add this article to the list of reasons why I feel that John Lasseter is moving the Mouse in the right direction again... which makes me that much happier about when, a few years from now, I take my daughter to Walt Disney World for the first time; I can only imagine what progress they will have made by that point.

Thanks you, Jim!

On the animation side, I'm really happy ... sounds like John and the guys from Pixar are really heading things in the right direction. I particularly LOVED this line ...

"But the one thing that we've never been able to do is achieve the beauty and the softness that you see in the backgrounds of classic Disney animated film. We wondered why. We set out to do some research at Disney to figure out if can we take that look, that beautiful look of those hand-painted backgrounds and see if we could do it in computer animation. And we solved it."

That's always been one of my biggest pet peeves with CGI. It's too darn smooth looking ... too clean ... surreal ... if they can bring some of that 2D animated reality (or at least quasi-reality) that some of the old classics had, I think that would be great.

On the live action side of things, though ... I'm dubious. Now don't hang me ... I know Pirates has done amazing things ... but Jungle Cruise?? I mean ... to me that REEKS of another Haunted Mansion level disaster. Of course, I know nothing about the film, but still ... derivative, unimaginative, and boring are some of the first words that came to mind. Stop "mining" the theme parks for ideas and just make some good movies.

Also ... whatever happened to Eisner's idea (one of his few great contributions to Disney, I might add) about making moderate budget pictures to lower risk and increase profit potential? It worked for them so well in the 80's and early 90's. Why is everything all of a sudden, " ... an epic, sprawling adventure ... "? Which to me means a big budget, high risk kind of picture?

And if I'm not quite sick of the notion of "franchises" and "brands", I'm getting damn close. What is this? McDonald's???

<i>"...action-adventure centered around our fun-loving con man of a riverboat captain. Think "Pirates of the Caribbean" meets "Indiana Jones..."</i>

Wow... that's almost exactly what I was hoping for from this movie. It all hinges on the skipper. If they put a throwaway line implying that his great-great-great-great grandfather was a familiar pirate, I definitely won't mind.

Prince of Persia could be GOOD. "The Sands of Time" was phenomenal game. The second entry wasn't as well done, but they redeemed themselves with the third. You can bet that Disney will want this to be their next epic trilogy.

I am going to carry the water for 'Jungle Cruise', and say it should be a great film.  I think Disney learned after Haunted Mansion, Country Bears and POTC what it takes to turn an attraction into a film.  As Curly would say, It's the One Thing.  And that one thing is a story that stands on its own.  In POTC II when the Governor say's "Where's that dog?" everybody laughed.  But those who have voyaged on Pirates at a park were in on the joke as well.  I'm not sure if I'm clear, but HM and CB just seemed too forced to include as many ride references as possible which did not really advance the contrived story.  HM just became an Eddie Murphy vehicle.  Since Jungle Cruise itself was based on the movie 'African Queen', that is where the writers need to look for inspiration.  As in POTC, ride references should give the film a patinia of familiarity, without forcing the story.

Is it just me, or does their some to be a bit of hipocrisy surround Lasseter?  On Meet the Robinsons, his attitude is "Make the movie you want to make.  Tell your story."  On American Dog the attitude was, "I don't like the movie you're making.  You won't tell the story I want you to tell.  We'll get someone else to make this movie, thank you."

In Disneyland he increases the budget and delays for the Nemo ride, because he wants to plus the hell out of it.  In Epcot, well, it's a cute C-ticket that he made no changes to.

The guy can make some great movies, no doubt about that, but so far his management style seems to be very much based on his interests and desires.  

"So if you'd like to hear what Nathan & I have to say about the problems that the Walt Disney Company appears to be having with their "Pirates" franchise, you may want to give a listen to that podcast."

Yeah, I highly doubt you'll be able to convince me that a franchise whose last movie is the 3rd biggest movie box-office-wise of all time is having problems.

As for the Rest

Jungle Cruise: As long as they take inspiration from the ride (and not make it about the ride), it should be good

Prince of Persia: The pics look very cool (and it certainly looks epic). Hopefully it doesn't take the same turn as King Arthur did.

Meet the Robinsons: All I know is that before Lasseter came on board, the trailers were inspirational, heavily featured Bowler Hat Guy and felt truly Disney-like. Now th trailers show a film that's basically yet-another-CGI-toon (are the frogs & dinosaur needed)? Now the posters don't even show Bowler Hat Guy (again, do some singing frogs take precedent over the film's villain?).

Ratatouille: Looks to be Yet-another-Pixar-film

Wall-E: Still, nothing makes me the least bit excited about this.

Pirates: Can't wait

Jim: What happened to the Jim that always used to say that he would never JUST post a press release from Disney? I see that lasted long.

>>He's trying to figure out what's going on and then he realizes that he is just an actor on a TV show, that his entire life, 10 years of his short life, has been spent being a fake, that he is not really what he thinks he is.<<

I dunno, man, seems like a cruel trick to play on a 70 YEAR OLD DOG.

Who is goning to do the voice of Bolt in American Dog? Jim Carrey?

To me the story is like a cg version of The Truman Show.....

daf118:  "I dunno, man, seems like a cruel trick to play on a 70 YEAR OLD DOG."

You see, your point would work IF the dog/human "year conversion" was actually factual... :D

RE: Ask Mike.

See?

"Yeah, I highly doubt you'll be able to convince me that a franchise whose last movie is the 3rd biggest movie box-office-wise of all time is having problems."

Third biggest of all time, but how much profit did it bring up?

You can't deny the movie has been full of problems. FULL. What problems? Well, they're called hurricaines, and have nothing to do with anything other than location. But huge problems. They won't alter the quality of the movie unless Disney gets nervous and starts doing less on location, but they're still problems.

Of course, then there's the big expectations it is desperate to live up to and in many ways needs to, thanks to the massive budget explosion. And the question of whether or not a fourth, fifth and sixth would be viable, let alone whether many of the cast would be willing to return, for how much, and if they're even really needed.

No matter how successful a movie you're going to have problems. In fact, the bigger the movie, or the movie before, the more likely you'll have these problems.

Jungle Cruise - meh. We'll see. I don't think the subject matter will catch fire. If you asked late teenagers and twentysomethings before the film came out what they thought was cool you'd get lots of Pirates and Zombies. Both made huge combacks shortly after Y2K. Pirates cashed in on both of those trends. Both trends are still going strong, zombies moreso than pirates. But jungles? Not as much. Vikings would have been a better way to go.

Same goes for Prince of Persia. Is the American audience interested in a historical fantasy based in Iran? I'm thinking it'll be a hard sell. Had the purchased the similar Ninja Gaiden property and done ninjas vs. traditional japanese ancient evil... same tone similar movie different location... I think it would have played in Peoria.

"Third biggest of all time, but how much profit did it bring up?"

Let's say the combined budget of DMC & AWE is $600m (that includes the $225 per production pudget and $150m in advertising (which I personally think is overestimating)). DMC made $1.06b worldwide. What that means is after AWE makes $135m (which, btw, is what DMC made in its first three days), every dollar it earns after that is pure profit. So, yeah, I'm thinking it's gonna bring in a whole buttload of profit.

"See?"

See what?

"and in many ways needs to"

As I pointed out above, it only needs $135m to break even. Even if the appocalypse comes and AWE flops, it will still break even.

"No matter how successful a movie you're going to have problems. In fact, the bigger the movie, or the movie before, the more likely you'll have these problems."

Yes, every movie has production problems, some avoidable and some not. However, what Jim said is that Disney is having problems with the Pirates franchise, not production on the film, and that I simply cannot fathom (considering how DMC did, the profit AWE will bring in, all the theme park updates (like Pirates replacing Tom Sawyer), and various other big Pirates events).

"But jungles? Not as much."

I guess you can tell that to the millions of people who watch Lost & Survivor. And movie wise, when was the last major film set in the Jungle to judge from? Before CotBP, pretty much every Pirate film flopped (minus Peter Pan).

Uhm, excuse me?  Regarding "American Dog"......"tell your story", you say John Lasseter?

 What a joke!!  The story of "American Dog" is Chris Sanders story!!!  If JL really meant it, he'd have Chris Sanders telling his story...... the baby he has worked on for years as only Chris can tell it!

 Doesnt something smell a bit fishy here?

Sounds to me like the new "Lasseter king ego" of the WDFA castle doesnt like competition from someone (like Chris) with vision and originality that could stand on its own.

Could it be that "franchise problems" is in reference to making another series of movies that works, rather than just hashing them out? That's a positive, I'd say

Jungle Cruise sounds like it's aiming for its own Sparrow-type breakthrough character- something that HM and CB didn't quite have (I think both films' villains came close).

And Sanders? Well, is there any chance for his version in shorts or some Hot Topic line? The eyepatch kitty sure belongs on Hot Topic shelves.

The corporate reports really are a great source.  I've been digging around them for the past couple of months now and you really do find some good information.  Though apparantly I haven't digged around as much as you have.

Jim! I'm sooo excited about "Prince of Persia", but I can't seem to find those pics you used any where in the investor reports. And what about the "rough trailer" they mentioned? Any chance we can see that too?

Still little skeptical about American Dog, but I'll always be. Prince of Persia looks GREAT, WONDERFUL, SUPERB!!! Enough superlatives.. Now on to Wall-E, which looks.. well, just, .. THE BEST! I'm in love with the movie already...... Seriously..

Jim, you're totally right that the Investor Relations section is a box full of diamonds. I check it out periodically and love hearing/reading all the stories. Great article :)

@ supersally:

"Sounds to me like the new "Lasseter king ego" of the WDFA castle doesnt like competition from someone (like Chris) with vision and originality that could stand on its own."

Soooo true!!! I agree totally!

For some reason I'm really looking forward to Prince of Persia. It looks really cool, and sounds like it should be too.

As for Jungle Cruise...I just hope it's an adventure movie with some comedy, in the vein of pirates. I think it could be a cool movie, but it has to be done right.

I wish the title could be changed though. I can't really picture the Narrator Movie Man saying "The Jungle Cruise" and have it be not funny.

Lasseter article from today's NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/movies/04hols.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Dear Empoor,

   You may be an insider like I am and can see thru this Lasseter stuff.  So many folks outside the industry are blinded by the glamour and dollars, that they seldom see the egomaniacal stuff that comes up when dealing with directors.  That WDFA is now taking rules from Pixar is insulting!!! Eisner started the downward trend, and it now continues under Iger.  The truth of the matter is that Lasseter is a massive ego, and the people that intimidate him, he gets rid of.  There are so many yes men around him, that wouldn't dare to call things or object to what he is doing for fear of losing their spot in the supposed limelight.  

   Chris Sanders, Glen Keane, people like Ron and John are totally capable and have great vision to take Disney back into the forefront of animation.  Problem over the years has been that the suits have controlled the company and middle management takes over........ the suits all jocky for themselves, hopeing to look good to the latest flavor of the month..... Schumacher or Eisner, or Iger.  The dont give a damn about the artistry of the films, just the bottom dollars to pad their pockets.  When a company goes down that path, takes control away from the artists, and puts the control in the hands of the dollar sign suits, things go down hill.

  At Pixar, without the stresses of the overhead of theme parks, etc., Lasseter and co remained fairly isolated.  As they made money, they gained support from the suits.  So the suits are just doing what they have always done..... following the dollar signs to the next best thing.

  In the process, tho, by giving John and Ed all the control, they totally discount the other GREAT directors and artists that did grow when Disney was a good company.  It is so insulting to them, to have John, who, btw, was not going anywhere at disney for lack of skill, to suddenly be telling them what to do.  Iger should realized the value of his own artists in house, put the command of WDFA back in the hands of the Sanders, Dubois and Keanes, and allowed them to reestablish and define the culture.  But NOOOOOO, Iger, being the suit he is (and yes he is just a suit not a creative) decides that pixar has the golden egg solution.  The great artists that have suffered under their bad management are now pushed aside, AGAIN, in favor of the supposed magic of Pixar.

  Cars, at the end of the day, suffers the exact same problem of the vanillizing of Disney.  Sidekick, forelorn main character in search of self, girlfriend, etc.  Cars is the formula that killed disney..... it is the worst film by far Pixar has done.  I am so glad Happy Feet won the Oscar this year!!  It had problems with story, etc., but at least it tried to be a bit different.

  The stuff for "Robinsons" looks awful.  The character designs and story could not be more generic or unappealing.  Glen has been beating Rapunzel for over five years...... he has the vision, the suits havent let him go with it. Its just one insult after the next.

  Now there is this ridiculous article talking about how John is telling the directors (oh, btw...... that he chose, that work under his thumb, fyi) to follow their vision for the films.  What a load of crap!!! He puts people in place that he can control..... believe me, he doesnt want a great talent like Sanders showing him up for originality and quirkiness.  So, you read all these silly articles about how Chris defended his turf, and didnt go with the flow?  What a load of crap, too!  The truth is, Chris could show John up, and John couldnt control him.  Chris, being the GREAT ARTIST, that he is, said no..... I will not compromise my vision for you! Result.... pink slip.

 If I can tell any of you not in the industry one thing, it is to see things as they are and not be blinded by the glamour of it.  AT the end of the day, people are chasing dollars, not art..... and anyone who tries to promote vision away from the company "groupthink" gets axed.  John is no saint, believe me..... and he is as insecure and egomaniac as I have ever encountered and worked with.  

  FYI.

supersally, we speak the same language. I totally agree with EVERYTHING (and doesn't happen a lot with me) you just said. I'm (unfortunately) no insider, like you, but I analyzed the whole deal a lot. I had a lot of respect for Lasseter before, but ever since he "re-joined" Disney, he has gone significantly down in ratings. His actions with American Dog/Chris Sanders, his replacement of Alan Menken on The Frog Princess, his "issues" with Glen Keane and Rapunzel (and Lasseter and Keane's subsequent arguing); all actions that shows he doesn't really care about WDFA.

Lasseter will always (ALWAYS) put Pixar in front of WDFA in all his decisions. I still believe he has a grudge against WDFA for letting him go (or use any other definition, all the same). I truly believe that grudge is what keeping WDFA from rising to the top of the animation industry again. Pixar is Lasseters (and Catmulls) grown-up baby, and they will always look at Pixar as their own "offspring" and WDFA as their.. well, unwanted step-grandchild, who came with Pixars marriage to Disney. Anyway, this metafor is getting creepy, but I hope you get what I mean :)

"In the process, tho, by giving John and Ed all the control, they totally discount the other GREAT directors and artists that did grow when Disney was a good company."

True. They were bypassed without even being an option to become animation studio chairman. Those people are WDFA and WDFA is those people. Now nobody who is WDFA is controlling WDFA, and that's really weird, 'cause there a lot of talented people working there who can do the job. What am I saying? They would ROCK!! Glen Keane, for starters. The master! He totally has the ability to make WDFA number one again. But no, Iger wants to go for the "shiny names". Catmull and Lasseter are the big names now, so he thinks having them on board will automatically restore everything. And it doesn't. They're destroying the place.

"If I can tell any of you not in the industry one thing, it is to see things as they are and not be blinded by the glamour of it.  AT the end of the day, people are chasing dollars, not art."

That's the sad, sad, truth. And it shouldn't be that way, because good art brings in more people at the end of the day, and that brings in more money, etc..

I've got say that I'm not sure how "tell the story you want to tell" translates to 60% (according to the NYT article I linked to in my last post)  of Robinsons being cut following JL's notes. But I'm still jazzed by what I've heard about it.

There's been discussions over at John "Ren & Stimpy" Kricfalusi's blog about how cartoons should be controlled by artists/cartoonists.

While the solution to that hypothesis is not absolute, Pixar and Disney seem to be taking that route by letting the artists have control of their projects, with an experienced artist as the main executive. I still have a slight problem with American Dog, but the reports so far sound very exciting.

excuse my english- mys first languige is German. i am animatr fromthe Ukraine- very rare indeed it seems. american dogs does not sound good. it sounds like bad film. it too similar to toy story which i and many in Kiev enjoyed.

the story within the story of film with Bolt having superpower is excellent idea.- infacts even beter than main idea of him going across america.

he protect the small girl and your motivation is there and potential for many ideas and gags is all there.

very serious problems with this film that are too far gone to resolve narratives.

my suggest. scrap and pursue rapunzel  and enchanted.

Sometimes I am really surprised by the seemingly Black & White viewpoints that some of you on here have about things. Take Lassiter's "seemingly hypocritical" act of telling one director to change his movie and then telling another to make the movie he wants to. If, when he heard the story from Sanders and saw whatever had been made he decicded that it wasn't going to work (for whatever reason) then it is his JOB to make changes. When circumstance number 2 rolls around and he hears a great pitch from Anderson - and then sees how it's been changed by all the cooks in the kitchen - he SHOULD tell him to do the story that he wanted to in the first place, apparently the much better version. That is not hypocritical, it's smart, both artistically and business-wise. It seems like some of you want him to be totally hands off or totally hands on. Well at least hands off when you (the internet folks who get 15% of the story months or years before the darn thing gets released) like the movie. If you hate the 15% or so that you hear then you get all pissy when he doesn't jump in and drastically make changes... to suit you. C'mon. Lassiter isn't god, but he sure ain't stupid. I will really miss the eye-patch cat too, but I'm not gonna hate Lassiter or condemn the movie if he doesn't appear in the next Disney/Pixar flick.

I know we all care deeply about all things Disney, Pixar, and animation in general... but we seem to enjoy 'driving from the backseat' quite a lot.

And please don't pull the "I'm an insider so I'm smarter then you" ploy. All that means is that you have different ideas and bias's with your own axe to grind. Personally I think all discussions on here should mostly center around LOGICAL and FACTUAL things. And all opinions should be backed up with some reasons OTHER then more opinions. Everytime somebody complains that a movie like CARS is just a rip off of some other movie needs to remember that 99.9% of all movies are a rip off, to one degree or another, of many movies that came before it. Heck, some of us on here are thrilled with the idea for a JUNGLE CRUISE movie which is supposed to be a "cross between PoTC and Indiana Jones" Hmmmm sounds like a totally original idea to me! NOT!! It is HOW you tell the story that truly sets them apart. Personally it wouldn't bother me a bit if Pixar told a similar story another 10 times as long as it was a fresh take on it, with great characters, and a compelling story arc.

Well, actually, you went into the black & white viewpoints section yourself. And factual things?! I've got some facts for you...

1. Lasseter and WDFA parted ways, in a way that was only negative for Lasseter (fact)

2. Lasseter loves Pixar (fact)

3. Catmull & Lasseter have done a great job at Pixar (fact)

4. Catmull & Lasseter are controlling Disney Pixar Animation nowadays (fact)

5. Two Pixar guys are controlling both Pixar AND WDFA now (fact)

6. One of those guys once worked at WDFA and had a bad break-up (fact)

7. The combination of 1, 2, 5, 6 is, according to management rules, not a good foundation for the most solid foundation of control (fact)

We weren't actually just saying Lasseter should be opted-out of WDFA because he makes bad decisions from time to time. (And you may say the whole American Dog thing wasn't a bad decision, but it was.) We were wooing for the possibility that a WDFA senior gets to control WDFA, because they know the company the best, have had the longest track-record at WDFA, and shouldn't just be passed without notice.

"Everytime somebody complains that a movie like CARS is just a rip off of some other movie needs to remember that 99.9% of all movies are a rip off, to one degree or another, of many movies that came before it."

That's just stupid. If Pixar is the "grande entreprise" (French) everybody always preaches (which seems weird to conclude with only seven films produced) they should have been going for that 0.1% of all movies that aren't a rip off, shouldn't they?!

"Personally it wouldn't bother me a bit if Pixar told a similar story another 10 times as long as it was a fresh take on it, with great characters, and a compelling story arc."

The same story, over and over again? Really...?! Even with a fresh take, great characters and a compelling story arc, that's just b to the o r i n g. And glad they don't do that, just look at how nice Wall-E's storyline is.

Empoor - good points, but I still disagree.

Your points:

1. So what? Unless you assume that everyone harbors ill will and just bides their time to wreck revenge, I'm not sure what that proves?

2. So what? Disney loves Pixar so much that they bought it. And at such a price that many people believe they over paid for it. If liking Pixar (from what they've done so far) is wrong, I don't wanna be right.  ;o)

3. I agree. So what?

4. Good. I'm glad to hear that someone is in charge who cares about QUALITY.

5. If having two very successful people in charge of a recently flailing animation department bothers you, I'm sorry. I consider it a blessing.

6. See response to # 1. Again I say, So what?

7. Any problems you see from those points you singled out should mean that you are pissed at DISNEY, since without their actions, none of what you said would matter in the least. Would you also never want George Lucas to come back and help revamp Star Tours since he too had a falling out with Eisner? It's that type of non-logic that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up when I read some of the rants that some folks on here go into. Until Lassiter and/or Catmull fail at something once it is a FINISHED PRODUCT, I am going to give them the benifit of the doubt.

I'm not sure what point or points you were trying to make with these 'facts'?

When you want to say that tenure = quality, I think you need to have your head examined. Eisner was with Disney for quite sometime and he got progressively worse as time went on. As recent history proves out, I will take Pixars judgements over Disney's when you compare the movies made over the same time period every day of the week. As far as American Dog goes, I have no real opinion... I havn't seen it yet nor have I read the final script. I do miss a character that at a recent date was supposed to be in the movie, but I have seen characters cut from other movies that I would have loved to see in the final product, that didn't make it, and I still loved the movies.

If you think that my premise that all movies are about 99% rip off of some previous movie(s)... then I dare you to name me one movie that is truly original from start to finish. The minor details (setting, characters, etc,...) may vary, but the overall plot will be similar if not a copy of one or more movies that have come before it. As far as the french saying you used, I have no idea what that means so I can't comment on that.

Several of Pixars movies have been variations on a theme. Just read back through many of the conversations on this very site to see if many people dont share that same thought. Even Wall-E has been bashed in the same vein.

While my statement of another 10 movies being all similar was an exageration, I stand by the idea behind it. I will take a quality production of a previously used (and altered) story over a bad or mediocre production of a 'new' (and I use that term loosely since I see no possibility of anything truly new) story every time.

Lastly, I fail to see where I brought up the Black & White way of thinking, other than drawing attention to it, but can quote examples of others doing just that if you wish.

hotlink caller ringtone poll