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Disney Bets Big on Hand-Drawn Animation
By Kyle | November 2, 2009
An interesting Wall Street Journal article looks at Disney’s decision — encouraged by Pixar’s chiefs — to go hand-drawn with its latest, $150 million feature, “The Princess and the Frog.” I think the rival feature “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” is going to be a much bigger hit because it’s easier to explain and because kids want to laugh. Also, I can’t picture boys going to see a movie with “princess” in the title, but Alvin and Co. are bound to appeal to both boys and girls. A surprising tidbit from the article: hand-drawn and computer-animated movies cost about the same. Shouldn’t digital technology be saving studios money? So far it doesn’t look like it has. “Avatar” isn’t cheap either, and it doesn’t even have expensive actors.
November 2nd, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Yes, Disney’s first Afro-American princess too. Which is strange since the Eisner era 2d animation output featured a smorgasborg of multicultural heros and heroines, just before it went bust.
As for 2d vs 3d, I checked out the first 3d Tinkerbell movie and the 2d animation of the character is far superior. The 3d looks like a product ad for Tinkerbell dolls, whereas the 2d Tinkerbell is . . . well lets say that there’s a reason Disney used her for virtually everything he put on TV.
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:47 pm
My little girl is 8, and growing out of the princess fascination. But she is spellbound by these trailers and we’re a dead cert for opening day. I do believe she has some nostalgia for hand-drawn animation, for that look.
The boy will go if he has to “and there’s popcorn”.
November 8th, 2009 at 11:36 am
I agree. They should look at the receipts of The Lion King to name one.