Bambi II

[js33]

They ARE getting desperate now.

Disney is dead. Long live Pixar. :applause:

Cheers,
JS

[Fasty]

lol I heard they were considering making a cg shot-for-shot remake of the original Bambi at one stage!

I love this quote from the above link..

"So, 2D is not dead at Disney...it's just going to look a lot cheaper."

Can't wait! :drool:

[klingspor]

Apparently Disney believes they can get by solely on the income from cheap direct-to-video films, so what they're doing lately probably isn't stupid from a pure business point of view: They take little to no risks, produce cheap filcks and can more or less count on a steady income from kids buying the stuff.

But from my point of view, sometimes I feel like crying when I think of what they're in the process of destroying...

[paintbox]

Making creative movies in fact is a very risky business and I guess the top of Disney fails to see what type of work made them big (creative movies) is exactly what they are avoiding.

They should watch some more Pixar movies and notice that the love that went into it really shines out to the public. Viewers pick up on this and so Pixars makes money.

[jinchoung]

COOOOOOL.

they should make it so that the mom's charred remains happened to have fallen prostrate in an ancient indian burial ground and mystic forces brought her back to life as ZOMBIE MOMMY!

"the b@#$% is back and she's g@#damn pissed off!" that will be the tag line to the poster!

and bambi, thumper, and friends, along with the help of a greenpeace activist who happens to be a fallen priest has to bring her down - WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE.

and also have to bring down the evil forces of the NRA.

thematically, it's a hat trick!

it's MAN vs. NATURE vs. SUPER NATURE!

fan-freakin-tastic.

that's what i call a cartoon.

jin

p.s. i also have a great idea for THELMA & LOUISE 2 where it turns out that their car landed in the colorado river and they go on a killcrazy man hating rampage with lots of hot girl on girl action along the way. the fact that it will feature full frontal nudity for harvey keitel's character for some reason is a given.

[SheepFactory]

Originally posted by jinchoung
COOOOOOL.

"the b@#$% is back and she's g@#damn pissed off!" that will be the tag line to the poster!

.


:beer: i'll pay to see that!

[jinchoung]

yeah,

my philosophy is if you're going to desecrate a classic, you really gotta get up the courage to go balls to the walls and just really ruin it.

jin

[Pin_pal]

I can feel the ground rumble. Walt Disney (rip) must be spinning in his grave. Didn’t he say “NO SEQUELS, EVER!”

[slaughters]

I remember as a kid in the 70's that when you said you had a radio "Made in Japan" it was code for "cheap piece of cr*p". The Japaneese worked hard over the decades and now "Made in Japan" has come to mean "quality production"

Disney Corp is doing exactly the same thing !

Except in reverse !

[Dennik]

Somebody please assasinate mr Eisner.
Or at least change the company name from Disney, to Eisnerland.

[EricUNSL]

Roy Disney must have known this was coming. Probably added to the decision to leave the company. At least they can bank on it succeeding in the direct to video market. When Disney tries to be innovative and create original features other than the pixar stuff, the films usually tank big time. Anyone remember the recent treasure island disaster? Sticking to the safe but stupid decisions is what they seem to be doing best.

[FloydBishop]

The sequels that everyone complains about bring in TONS of money.

This does not mean they are of good, or bad quality. I've never seen any of them, but they make the company MILLIONS in profit with very little expenditure of new cash.

Like it or not, it's called show business... not show art.


Peter Pan II: Return to Neverland

Released in US February 15, 2002

Total US Gross $48,423,368

Production Budget $20,000,000



Jungle Book II

Released in US February 14, 2003

Total US Gross $47,879,731

Production Budget $20,000,000


Now compare that to a recent "first generation" film:


Treasure Planet

Released in US November 27, 2002

Total US Gross $38,120,554

Production Budget $100,000,000

And the advertising budget for that film was $30,000,000

I don't know what the numbers are for the films that are released only on video/DVD.

Pixar may have unintentionally reinforced the studio's willingness to make these kinds of sequel films with the success of their "Toy Story 2" movie.


Souce for market data: www.the-numbers.com

[midknight3]

Mulan 2 is being released as well, I saw the trailer for it on the Alice in Wonderland DVD I picked up this week.

[feefunk]

Floyd,

When you quote those "Production Budgets" do you know if that includes distribution costs?

I'm asking because normally promoting and distributing a film costs about the same amount of money or more than actually making it...


but hey, they keep making them (The Lion King 1 1/2) so it's probably still good business for Disney

[FloydBishop]

Originally posted by feefunk
Floyd,

When you quote those "Production Budgets" do you know if that includes distribution costs?

I'm asking because normally promoting and distributing a film costs about the same amount of money or more than actually making it...

I'm not sure how The Numbers does their figures. I'm pretty sure that the "production budget" listing is just that. Distribution budgets are usually taken out of a different account.

I'm pretty sure that studios have X amount of dollars for distributing all their films. That's why if a film is doing poorly, it gets yanked from theaters quickly, while movies that start to do better than expected get their theater numbers bumped up.

The bigger studios have seperate budgets for everything. DVD production costs, for example, are a different budget, and do not come out of the official "production budget".

[keithlango]

Distribution costs are after production budget. Production budget lists all reported or estimated above the line (actors, writers, directors, etc) and below the line (production artists, materials, overhead, etc) costs. Distribution costs are usually part of the reported advertising budget. That's usually listed as "P&A", short for "prints and advertising", since making film prints and advertising are the primary distribution costs. Distribution companies are all eagerly awaiting the day when film projection is phased out and digital distribution is the norm because it will greatly reduce the P&A costs for a film. Of course they'll still charge for it, but their margins will be better.

The one flaw is the current Disney milking pattern is it's short sightedness. The catalog of old films is finite. Generally each subsequent sequel has a diminishing ratio of returns (see the Rugrats & Stewart Little franchises for examples). When you've made "Cinderella III" you've pretty much scraped the bottom of your barrel and there remains very little left to wring out of the property, moneywise. The weakness lies in their seeming inability to create new, lasting franchises to exploit in the future. They can milk some cash out of exploiting the Pixar catalog (Monsters Inc. III: Mike's Diner", etc.) but the fact remains that they are currently unable to make new films that resonate with audiences and can generate further revenue exploitations down the road. Until that turns around, the current game plan has a very definite end point, after which even the catalog will have been devalued to the point of near worthlessness. And in Disney's case, their catalog of films and properties built up over the last 80 years are the real underpinnings for their entire business across all brands and units, with the exception of ESPN.

-k

[jinchoung]

alright,

i'll be the bubble burster.

i don't think pixar's fate is gonna be all that different from disney's.

is it any wonder that in the beginning, pixar and disney was a good match? it's not just that they both dealt with animated movies, but also that the content is basically the same ol' KID FRIENDLY FAIRY TALES with anthropomorphized animals and stuff.

it's NOT that pixar makes the underlying stories that much more compelling or that disney's decline is related to their storytelling becoming significantly worse.

hell, pound for pound, over the last decade, disney has created some of the absolutely TIGHTEST narratives in all of moviedom.

but the problem has been and is, that all the content is essentially the same ol' kid friendly fairy tales.

it is my theory that disney did as well as it did starting from little mermaid because it did indeed create very tight and well crafted narratives and also because of NOVELTY.

but now, the novelty has worn off and what we're left with is tightly crafted stories that are basically the same - coming out with ALARMING FREQUENCY as well.

combine that with the glut of animated media on tv and you got a media public that's just kind of sick of the whole deal. sure, kids may like it regardless and they probably can watch the same toons on tv constantly but for movies, it's the parents that buy the tickets.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and this is where i see pixar's undoing too.

like disney, they do what they do very very well. but if they continue along with the same ol' kid friendly fairy tales, eventually the novelty will wear off.

right now, CG is 'big' and nearly all the cg films made have done well. contrary to many, i actually didn't like shrek very much and it suffered from the same ol disney formula of kid faire with radical anachronisms to keep 'hip'. ugh. and hell, ANTZ did well!

but this novelty WILL WEAR OUT - JUST AS IT DID WITH 2D ANIMATION.

again, the primary reason for failure will not be because of failure in quality. it will be the audience's boredom of the same thing in different packages.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

unless american animation can learn to branch out and address many different forms of content like live action movies and really 'grow up' -

as well as reign in production budget to fractions of what it is now (because really, american studio's expectations of animated movies' returns [and therefore expenditures on them] are just ludicrous) -

basically adapting the japanese mode, it seems to me that american animation is constantly doomed to-

FAILING

BECOMING REBORN BECAUSE OF SOME GIMMICK

FALTERING AS PEOPLE GET SICK OF THE SAME OLD

FAILING

actually, same thing with american comics industry!

more variety. much cheaper! therein lies salvation!

jin

[noisewar]

because we all know how unique and well-written every anime is, and how they all look so stylistically different each time to push the boundaries of animation.

jin you are so wrong I fear for you. Kid friendly fairy tales is a very GenX slambam way to look at serious, quality work. Or must you have gratuitous panty shots and robotech violence to write a good story? You seem to forget that while parents buy the tickets, their kids tell them what the want to see.

[GRMac13]

Originally posted by jinchoung
like disney, they do what they do very very well. but if they continue along with the same ol' kid friendly fairy tales, eventually the novelty will wear off.

I don't see this happening anytime soon. Kids will always be fascinated by these "fairy tale" stories. They play into a child's tendency to romanticize the world and see it through a different perspective. Pixar knows just how to capture this perspective on film, whereas Disney has apparently lost it's touch. Pixar will prove that the success of thier films is not due to the "novelty" of thier medium of choice (CG) when they start releasing thier first 2D animated films in a few years.

Besides, since when are kids' movies a "novelty"? Your post suggests that the only way that Pixar can guarantee future success is to branch out and do more "adult" themed films. I heartily disagree. Thier films appeal to people of all ages, and they don't have to resort to violence or sex to do it. I hope they never do. I'm sure they'll be plenty of other studios who'll try to captialize on the "anime" craze, hopefully they can be more successful than Square was. Pixar is very much an American-stlye animation studio, and that's just fine by me. In fact, even the Japanese realize just how valuable a children's "fairy tale" story can be in this medium. Just look at the work of Studio Ghibli. "Spirited Away" was successful without being unsuitable for kids.

[jinchoung]

nope,

every japanese anime is NOT great. but there IS a diversity of content. this is even more of a case with their manga where you basically have comic soap operas.... sure, a vast majority are indeed giant robot stories (or as i said elsewhere, stories about 'spiritual jello' or chicks getting raped by tentacles) but there are such things as animated drama (millenium actress being a recent example), erotica, horror, erotic horror, etc.

chocolate may in fact be great but there's a limit to how much one can take.

violence and sex is not what i was arguing for and it's a specious argument to bring that up. there's a lot of serious adult movies that don't have either. why not animation?

and we're approaching things from opposite ends of the spectrum.

you guys are assuming that disney lost its touch. i'm arguing that's simply not the case. we just got bored with the good but sameness of it all.

so yah, disagree. i fully expect to be the minority opinion but let's not get condescending. but i am saying that kid faire and animation that only does that is indeed NOVELTY.

further, who says that american animation HAS TO BE KID FRIENDLY? why NOT diversify?

and i also have the economic argument that american feature animation costs so much that unless the movies are BLOCKBUSTER HITS, they lose big money.

that's proving unviable. again, my argument is more variety and cheaper. and a big reason why i bring up japanese animation is because they have a sustainable industry whereas we are finding increasingly that we do not.

in the case of pixar and cg cartoons, we'll just have to see how it plays out. but i do indeed have a bad feeling of deja vu coming on.

jin

[jinchoung]

oh,

and i AM arguing for branching out beyond children's stories.

BUT

even WITHIN children's stories, it would help if the stories weren't has homogenous as american animation makes it out to be.

there is a rich tradition of even just children's stories from aesop, grimm, hans christian andersen.... a great deal of these are much darker and complex in their original forms than the american versions make them out to be.

but alas, american animation has only a single form of syrupiness with which it trusts children can connect to.

heck, even if we diversified enough to be able to make something like spirited away, it would be better than the current situation.

jin

[DigiLusionist]

It cost $20M to do a 2D animated sequel? What the hell? I've seen those pieces of trash with my children. I would've thought $2M to produce, tops.

[slaughters]

Originally posted by jinchoung
...but alas, american animation has only a single form of syrupiness with which it trusts children can connect to....Everytime I read these kind of statements I always wonder. How would people like Jin have reacted if they never had a change to see Toy Story or Monsters Inc, Lion King, etc.. Because I heard the "exact" same arguments during the 70's. If they had been followed at that time then a lot of good shows would have never been made.

Why do people have trouble realizing that even though they are "burned out" on something, there are allways people who have never seen it before and to whom it is all a wonder.

[jinchoung]

yeah but check it,

my argument of NOVELTY fits perfectly with the facts and shows perhaps that it's NOT JUST ME that gets tired of it.

fine, we had blazing days in the 50s and 60s.

and then what happened?

it failed. NOVELTY RAN OUT.

you got a long time of fallow ground.

RENEWAL.

BLAZING DAYS.

NOVELTY WEARS OUTS.

FAIL.

so what about the history as you state it argues counter to this?

and it's my contention that if pixar just does 3d disney, it's doomed to repeat this very cycle.

as i say, chocolate is great. but as good as it is, ya can only take so much.

and sure, some people will watch anything and everything that comes out. can you support a 100million dollar budget from those people? again, disney is finding that it's just not so.

so i say again, WHY NOT some variety? WHY NOT open up the subject matter of animation? WHY NOT cut costs to allow for making a return on niche viewership and open it up?

WHY NOT?

jin

[|||Dusty_AJ|||]

uhhh now there just running out of ideas :rolleyes:

[Per-Anders]

Originally posted by jinchoung
yeah but check it,

my argument of NOVELTY fits perfectly with the facts and shows perhaps that it's NOT JUST ME that gets tired of it.

fine, we had blazing days in the 50s and 60s.

and then what happened?

it failed. NOVELTY RAN OUT.

you got a long time of fallow ground.

RENEWAL.

BLAZING DAYS.

NOVELTY WEARS OUTS.

FAIL.

so what about the history as you state it argues counter to this?

and it's my contention that if pixar just does 3d disney, it's doomed to repeat this very cycle.

as i say, chocolate is great. but as good as it is, ya can only take so much.

and sure, some people will watch anything and everything that comes out. can you support a 100million dollar budget from those people? again, disney is finding that it's just not so.

so i say again, WHY NOT some variety? WHY NOT open up the subject matter of animation? WHY NOT cut costs to allow for making a return on niche viewership and open it up?

WHY NOT?

jin

well, here's a couple of words for ya

treasure planet.

and there have been other forrays into even slightly different markets than the young child market and they've fallen smack down on their face, titan AE is another one targeting a similar market to treasure planet that also bombed. in fact disney arguably fell over on an animation that was meant to target a more adult audience in the first place, and it was under eisner that the corporation got back on it's feet.

there are a few reasons for disney not going into the adult market asside from history. number 1 is that disney is a brand and that brand stands for wholesome family entertainment. anything that undermines that brand value is bad news especially for marketing, and hence for the overall profits of the company.

another but in many ways no lesser reason would be that they are already hitting the biggest market out there, and in combination with films distributed under the MGM banner they have got it covered.

despite what may be thought by those who're fans, anime and adult animation in america at least (disney's biggest market) is not hugely popular. it's a trendy but small thing, it does not gross huge ammounts, it's not grossing enough to warrant a change in perception by disneys market trend analysts. in fact because of the publics perception of animation and cartoons, it would most likely be commercial suicide to adopt an "adult" theme.

another argument is it depends on what an "adult" theme is. teens would believe that violence, sex and drugs are adult themes, but in fact they're teen themes, not adult. history has shown that attempting to break the teen market with animation has rarely if ever been succesful within the west by western animation houses. arguably they try too hard, and fail. and teens ahve access to any number of live action genres to fulfill these "adult" criteria. an animation is considered mawkish before the off. in truth adult is merely considered and intelligent plot, good character depth and development, clever and well written plot... interestingly all the things that are in pixar or even better disney movies already.

it is not the content which dooms either company. and frankly despite the gloom surrounding them disney is hardly doomed at this point. while it may seem bleak from the perspective of animation, consider it merely as the competitoin with warner... and the many tv stations owned. disney wont go anywhere for a while yet.

pixar is hugely successful, far more so than i suspect any production facility creating more adult orientated material. i also suspect they will outlast most adult animation production houses. with sucess like this, proven historical reasons to continue down this route, the size of the facility and it's ability to maintain a flow of products 'v' the content of those products, and of course with the pixar brand... maybe the question is "why would anyone in their right mind consider gambling that on attempting to do adult only themed cartoons?"

[Fasty]

mdme_sadie, I think you just made the most intelligent and well articulated post ever regarding that topic :applause:

[klingspor]

jinchoung, while I agree with some of your points, I think there is one major flaw in your argument: Even today, people still like to watch the classic Disney movies, don't they? Be it Snow White, the Jungle Book, the Lion King or what have you.
Surely not because of their novelty! No, simply because they are great movies with a good story and are fun to watch. Unlike many of Disney's newer movies, which are extremely formulaic and solely out to make cash.

Just like in good anime, you can see that the Disney classics and also the Pixar films were created with a lot of passion; the creators actually stood for what they were doing, they wanted to make the best movie they possibly could. And I think that's exactly what people miss in the recent Disney productions. Not their lack of novelty...

[noisewar]

actually I think Japanese anime is a creatively bankrupt industry. I watch plenty of Japanese anime and cinema both... my conclusion is that in every genre, there are a small percentage of worthwhile, groundbreaking works that are at the tip of the curve. The fans of that genre can name you dozens of titles out of that small percent, and will attack another genre for the inferior part of its curve.

So Jin when you say your argument is NOVELTY, you aren't telling anyone anything new because novelty is human nature. Show me an established, money making industry that doesn't have it's own curve. Ignoring the fact that the Japanese animator makes near minimum wage (if you don't believe me, ask Chibli how much they pay). The tip of the curve will ALWAYS set the example for mimickers aplenty to copy, and those ideas copied will always face the danger of being called NOVELTY.

It's unfair to say Americans only like syrup. Even Blockbuster now carries some really cool Japanese movies, they've got Ichi the Killer, Sharkskin man and Peachhip girl, and Samurai Fiction. Hell I even found one blockbuster with Pistol Opera, and that was damn near too experimental even in its homeland. Be fair. I'm sure if we all moved to Japan, we wouldn't suddenly be in a world of improved cinema.

And to answer your WHY NOT WHY NOT WHY NOT... well because that's not what they do. Why doesn't Kawajiri remake Maid in Manhattan? It's not what he does! Innovations is composed of many individuals who do things their own way, not one industry that does everything every way. I'm not saying that's the way it should be, but that's the way it is.

[jinchoung]

hello fellows,

several arguments here, not all of which i disagree with.

1. yep. it may indeed be difficult for disney to segue to more adult content. so it may indeed be that disney is impotent to change its destiny. i guess it's a symbiotic kinda thing where the american industry makes kid cartoons because the public expects kid cartoons but kinda because we only make kid cartoons etc. be that as it may, my argument is simply that if you CAN'T branch out, your NOVELTY will wear out. yah, disney may not be able to do anything about it. but i still stick to the crux of my argument - failing that, they're doomed to a cyclical (over decades) business.

1.5. never saw treasure planet but that just may be an example of disney not doing more 'adult' stories well - as soon as i heard it was an adaptation of treasure island, my interest just plumeted. they could try adapting 'cooler' stuff. TARZAN was fantastic. howabout conan? heck, howabout lord of the rings? i always wanted to see a disney animated epic treatment of LOTR. titan ae just sucked....

2. yah, we watch cinderella and snow white and stuff even today. but the issue is, the way disney currently does business, by investing so much in every feature that unless the movie is a blockbuster hit, it's gonna lose money, it's not a SUSTAINABLE INDUSTRY unless you get big numbers at the time of release. and my argument is that disney periodically gets big numbers only every few decades (and pixar and dreamworks does now) because of the novelty factor.

3. actually, everyone, including me is kinda all over the map in terms of the kinds of things that we're arguing but from the outset, mine is PRIMARILY A FINANCIAL ARGUMENT... one regarding the VIABILITY OF AN INDUSTRY. actually, it would be more accurate to say that from now on, i'll try to keep that as the primary point.

4. ok, anime may be creatively bankrupt. but they have a viable and continuing industry where american feature animation is becoming more and more problematic. so let me clarify - despite anyone's feeling about the quality of anime, i'm merely citing that they are viable and my interpretation of why that is is a combination of wide variety of subject matter plus a different production philosophy where they don't HAVE TO HAVE A BLOCKBUSTER HIT in order to continue what they're doing.

5. noisewar allowed that NOVELTY may indeed play a role. i'm not saying anything more radical than that. and the fluctuation of this 'CURVE' is the very thing that i am simply saying makes disney susceptible to contant rise and falls and may doom pixar to the same.

jin

[animatty]

Somebody needs to find a way to let the masses know the horror of what is happening to this company. Of course, we all know because most of us are part of the industry. I highly doubt the general public has any idea what an evil man Eisner is or how terribly he has managed the company.

there has to be some form of primetime coverage if people are going to get behind Roy, in mass. Let's just hope he wins that oscar. Get him on stage to tell the world what's happening. Joe Public needs to know.

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