Animations aimed to tail Disney hits
Animations aimed to tail Disney hits
By Dave McNary [10 pts ML]
LOS ANGELES (Upi): Animation has become one of the hottest areas for new films this year as rivals of Walt Disney Co. try to cash in on Disney's success.
Disney is leading the pack so far with The Lion King, the studio's 32nd animated feature and an early favorite to top the summer box office. Lion has the distinction of being Disney's first all-animal animated movie.
But half a dozen other contenders are coming this year, undaunted by the failures of several animated features in recent years.
The flops last year included Happily Ever After, Universal's We're Back!, and Warner's Batman: The Mask of Phantasm.
One of the 1993 quartet got to US$10 million in domestic ticket sales.
Warner Bros. is emerging as Disney's most serious 1994 challenger, with three movies out this year from Dublin-based Don Bluth, a former Disney animator who created An American Tail and The Land Before Time.
The first Bluth project came March 28 when Warner opened Hans Christian Andersen's Thumbelina, with music by Barry Manilow, followed by The Princess and the Goblin on June 3 and The Troll in Central Park, set for late summer.
Thumbelina and Troll are both high-budget projects with reported costs of $27 million each.
Fox has a holiday release planned for its $30 million The Pagemaster, which will combine animation and live action. The plot follows a boy, played by kid superstar Macaulay Culkin, who sees adventures in a library come to life.
Of course, Disney is not holding still. It has decided to boost its animated production to two films a year and it has already started showing its trailer for The Lion King.
Elton John
It recently screened an incomplete version of the movie at a trade show and prompted exhibitors and reporters to wonder if it would be as big as Aladdin, which took in nearly $220 million in domestic ticket sales.
The Lion King, featuring the voices of James Earl Jones, Jeremy Irons and Whoopi Goldberg and the music of Elton John, will open June 14 in New York and go into a nationwide rollout on June 24.
The plot involves a lion named Simba being forced into exile after the death of his father, the king of the lions.
Disney has a stunning track record in recent years in animation, starting with Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1988 and in 1989 with The Little Mermaid.
Those films performed above expectations and set the stage for Beauty and the Beast which topped $140 million in domestic grosses in 1991 and 1992.
Both Beauty and Aladdin then went on to top their domestic grosses overseas and set records in the booming home-video market.
The films have managed to do what rivals have not yet managed -- generate strong appeal to audiences outside the core of children and parents, with big doses of complicated animation and sophisticated humor.