When You Wish Upon a Nightmare - WDAS Collapses in the 80s
Interesting TL, @MrCarioca, great start, and an idea I'd hoped to see someone run with. I'm definitely watching. I suspect we'll be hearing from a certain Saul Steinberg shortly.
It's worth mentioning that The Great Mouse Detective name was dictated by Eisner and Katzenberg. I'd recommend keeping it as Basil . You could later cite the "boring and generic" name Basil of Baker Street as "confusing to audiences" leading in part to its poor performance. Just another nail in the coffin.
Also, don't forget the disastrous Disney Live Action films. Condorman was abysmal. Watcher in the Woods was an absolute catastrophe. Herbie Goes Bananas and Something Wicked This Way Comes not much better, though the latter became a cult classic and under-appreciated gem.
As the Disney Monorail Wreck continues, and the shareholders revolt, who you gonna call?
Better Call Saul!
It's worth mentioning that The Great Mouse Detective name was dictated by Eisner and Katzenberg. I'd recommend keeping it as Basil . You could later cite the "boring and generic" name Basil of Baker Street as "confusing to audiences" leading in part to its poor performance. Just another nail in the coffin.
Also, don't forget the disastrous Disney Live Action films. Condorman was abysmal. Watcher in the Woods was an absolute catastrophe. Herbie Goes Bananas and Something Wicked This Way Comes not much better, though the latter became a cult classic and under-appreciated gem.
As the Disney Monorail Wreck continues, and the shareholders revolt, who you gonna call?
Better Call Saul!
Chapter 3: The Black Cauldron
Chapter 3: The Black Cauldron
There was no doubt that the quality of animated films released after Walt's death had declined significantly. Not only were the films not up to snuff with what had came before them, but these films lacked any of the charm found in "Snow White", "Pinocchio" and "Peter Pan". "The Black Cauldron" sought to remove the negative stigma Disney films was currently having. Loosely based off the Chronicles of Prydain novels, it was Ollie Johnston who first suggested adapting the novels and in his own words "The film would've been as good as Snow White if we did it correctly". The film was conceptualised in the early 1970s but didn't enter full production until a decade later, by then it was slated to be the studio's big A-Picture, their next "Snow White".
During the early stages, production on "The Black Cauldron" was troubled and messy. For one, the release date was pushed from 1980, to Christmas 1984, then again to 1985. Storyboard Artist Vance Gerry outlined the basic plot, characters and action. Having the three main characters established, the main hurdle was the Horned King who went through multiple re-designs before settling on the final product. John Musker was the initial director, however Miller didn't like the comedic direction he was going. In Musker's own words : "The older people I was working with didn't like any of my ideas". It was highly possible that this played a key role of Musker's departure and him jumping ship to Don Bluth not long after. Meanwhile, directorial duites were transfered to Ted Burman.
Animation and voice work took quite some time compared to the previous two films. While both “Fox and the Hound” and “The Great Mouse Detective” allowed cheaper animation, “The Black Cauldron” had none of that, instead it used the much more expensive animation photo transfer process (APR). “The Black Culdron” was also the only other animated film to use the Technirama 70 format next to “Sleeping Beauty”, another ambitious project that almost tanked the studio. However, "The Black Cauldron" was different and would most certainly usher in an animation Renaissance, at least according to Miller and Burman. Regarding voice casting, Grant Bardsley was given the role of Taran and John Hurt was cast as the Horned King. It became a bit more complicated for Princess Elionwy, as both Hayley Mills and Susan Sheridan were considered for the role. Ultimately it was Mills who snatched the role away from Sheridan. Designwise, both Taran and Elionwy were designed to resemble "Sleeping Beauty", the Horned King became a thin skeletal figure with a hood and had his role expanded.
Another understated event which had happened during the production of "The Black Cauldron" was the change in administration. Disney shareholders Sid Bass and Roy E. Disney replaced Ron Miller with an arguably more competent businessman: Michael Eisner. Eisner had worked for ABC as senior vice president and later the president of Paramount's movie studio. Eisner wasn't alone however, he had brought president of production Jeffrey Katzenburg with him. Compared with Miller, Eisner was a far better CEO in every way. Eisner gave more creative freedom towards the new animators and directors, allowing for their greater judgement and direction. This decision would prove to be controversial as we'll later see, but the animators weren't complaining much. Under the new administration, "The Black Cauldron" would finally release to theaters in July 1985.
When a vision generated by the oracular powered pig Hen Wen depicting the feared Horned King leading an army of the dead, teenage pig-keeper Taran must get Hen Wen to safety. However Hen Wen is captured by the Horned King's goons, prompting Taran to rescue it and meet the badger-like creature (and comic relief although he is neither comic nor a relief to see) Gurgi. Taran successfully rescues Hen Wen but is thrown into the dungeon by the Horned King. There, another captive Princess Elionwy frees him alongside Fflewddur Fflam. The trio plus Gurgi now must embark on a quest to find the Black Cauldron and destroy it before the Horned King gets to it first.
As the release date of 1985 approached, heavy advertising campaigns began both on TV and in theaters. The film was advertised as "the next Snow White", its dark tone and mild gore gave the film a PG rating, the only WDAC film to do so. Coincidentally, it was also the last film released in the WDAC. "The Black Cauldron", despite its innovative visuals which could be described as eye candy, ended up being a catastrophical failure. Financially, it ended up making only half of its budget, performing even worse than both "Sleeping Beauty" and "Fantasia". Critically? It was a disaster. Many kids ran out screaming due to the infamous gore scene (1) and the Horned King's demeanor, and adults and casual audiences found the plot too lackluster and easily resolvable. "The Black Cauldron" was envisioned as a cinematic masterpiece that could define animation, instead it ended up as a abysmal and catastrophic production that ultimately caused the end of Walt Disney Animation Studios.
Release Date: July 24th 1985
Cast:
Hayley Mills (Princess Elionwy), others remain the same
(1) The deleted Army of the Dead scene from OTL
And finally we have reached the film that ended it all, the next chapter will focus on the collapse of WDAS (not the entire company) and the subsequent consequences. After that I might stop for a while since I need to figure out how the late 80s-90s will go.
Oh and speaking of late 80s-90s:
Oh and speaking of late 80s-90s:
The Big Renaissance Four and other Disney films IOTL may or may not end up produced by the others here, and you may already guess which one is guaranteed to be a Don Bluth production ITTL
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Since only the animation studio/department is collapsing (at least as far as I have currently planned), I don't think the Walt Disney Company would be bought out anytime soon.
The Great Mouse Detective seems more generic than Basil, hence why it's still used here. There will be an alternate reason for the name change however.
Also, thanks for watching! I wasn't really expecting this much popularity for a side timeline of mine but I'm not complaining lol.
Copy, I was expecting more than just Disney Animation going down based on the title. I was thinking this was a Saul Steinberg eviscerates Disney TL per his unsuccessful 1984 OTL attempt and others rush to fill the void (e.g. Bluth, Spielberg, Lucas). That would make for a tumultuous TL!
This is looking like Eisner Kills Disney Animation, which nearly happened OTL. Though I'll be curious to see how Roy reacts (he fought hard to save animation and would be a bad person to piss off as a major shareholder).
Good opening for Bluth with what you're setting up here.
Your TL and choice on Basil. Presumably someone could come up with the same idea.
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Yea the title might be misleading now that I look at it, I should probably change that soon.
I wouldn't say it's all Eisner's fault, more so a series of events that ultimately boiled over and caused WDAS's collapse, though Eisner does factor into TBC's failure. I don't think Roy would be happy with what would happen next that's for sure.
You don’t mind if I do a guest post where John Lasseter shares his feelings on the collapse of his favourite animation studio to his diary do you
2 August 1985
My girlfriend Nancy and I have just come back from seeing the black cauldron and Nancy absolutely loved it my feelings are a little more mixed as while the animation was up to the Disney animation standards that were set by Snow White and the seven dwarfs the action sequences were well handled and John Hurt was pretty good as his character i felt that the story could‘ve had an extra bit of work to make it live up to the standards of disney’s storytelling that was set by sleeping beauty and yeah I am very sorry to have heard in the news that Disney plan to shut their doors for good and to Disney thank you for making my childhood great and having me see that my career should be in animation.
John Lasseter
thoughts @MrCarioca
My girlfriend Nancy and I have just come back from seeing the black cauldron and Nancy absolutely loved it my feelings are a little more mixed as while the animation was up to the Disney animation standards that were set by Snow White and the seven dwarfs the action sequences were well handled and John Hurt was pretty good as his character i felt that the story could‘ve had an extra bit of work to make it live up to the standards of disney’s storytelling that was set by sleeping beauty and yeah I am very sorry to have heard in the news that Disney plan to shut their doors for good and to Disney thank you for making my childhood great and having me see that my career should be in animation.
John Lasseter
thoughts @MrCarioca
Seeing this, I wonder what John Lasseter would do ITTL. Maybe I'll figure it out soon enough.
Gotta say I'm excited to see a timeline where Disney quits animation. (Not that I hate Disney it's just that there's a lot of "Walt Disney lives to be 90 something years old and everything is sunshine and rainbow" timelines out there. (Also no offense to the writers of those timelines. They're great and well written, I'm just kinda burnt out on them.))
I feel like there's there's way more potential in a "Disney quits animation" timeline and a ton of different directions it could go in. There's some big shoes to fill with Disney gone. Shoes that no single animation studio could fill all by themselves. A whole different kind of animation renaissance could be kicked off with a lot of different styles and themes instead of trying to copy the success of The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.
I feel like there's there's way more potential in a "Disney quits animation" timeline and a ton of different directions it could go in. There's some big shoes to fill with Disney gone. Shoes that no single animation studio could fill all by themselves. A whole different kind of animation renaissance could be kicked off with a lot of different styles and themes instead of trying to copy the success of The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.
There will indeed be a lot to fill in the void left by WDAS shutting down. Regarding an animation renaissance, it all comes down to what films Bluth or potentially Warner Brothers/Pixar makes.