Solid news. Hopefully the rest of the cast won't be hard up for cash either. But methinks Tim Allen will be returning. I think Disney owns him.

A director has been found.

Bradley Raymond

Whose stellar resume includes the following:

Pocahontas 2
Hunchback of Notre Dame 2
Lion King 1 1/2
Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas

At least they are going for quality for the sequel.

Has Disney ever had a great "xxx 2 or 3"?

I've never "got" Disney. While there is obvious appeal for kids, what I despise about them is that there is so much restriction on the content in their movies. Something like The Lion King, which was virtually a stripped down Disney-fied version of Hamlet, contains virtually nothing of appeal to an adult audience. It's so sanitised that it comes across as superficial and puerile. Similarly with Disney characters - they lack depth and quirks in their personalities, so end up seeming so one-dimensional and stereotypical that they fail to captivate me. Yet, despite the sanitisation, and again taking The Lion King as an example, Disney have no problem showing Scar high up on a podium, looking down approvingly at a troop of marching warriors. You have to wonder why on earth Disney just didn't go the whole hog and give Scar a tiny lip moustache so that he could really look the part as the marchers pause to give him a quick 'Sieg Heil'! It's quite ironic.

When you watch a Pixar movie or something like Shrek from Dreamworks, you get scenes and lines that just leap out and wink at the adult audience. But Disney films just play entirely to children and forget about the adults sitting there watching the film with them.

The only animated movie that Disney made that even remotely kept my interest was Lilo & Stitch, as it tried to break out a little from the Disney mould. Even that had to be reigned in in the end though.

So, if Pixar ain't doing it, I ain't interested. Disney won't be able to stop themselves sanitising Toy Story and turning it into something that can only be appreciated by those who still dribble.

Lion King 1.5 was reasonably amusing for what it was, "Great, we're in the theater district!", and I haven't seen Lilo & Stitch yet (I thought the 2 disc SE would be out a lot quicker), but my wife and I continually quote The Emperor's New Groove to each other all the time. IMHO, it's feel and pace come quite close to a classis Looney Tune feature.

This TS3 deal sounds worse and worse every day.

more bad news:

from CNN:


So not only will the Toy Story franchise go in the crapper, Eisner plans to drag them all down. I think his whole goal is to "sulley" the Pixar name by the time they go solo.

BTW, I disagree about Lion King completely, Squirrel god.

I don't really get the logic of all this ...

So we want Di$ney to fail as a computer animation shop because why ... we want fewer options of animated feature films to attend?

Pixar wanting percentage of the rights to Toy Story is not much different from a star athlete who wants to renegotiate the contract he was perfectly happy with at the time. Regardless of whether you side with the athlete or management .... it's all about the money.

Don't get me wrong I dislike what Di$ney has become too but I also accept the reality of things. There is no way on God's green earth that feature hand drawn cel animation has a future if Walt Disney was reborn tomorrow. It's too costly and it takes too many years to create the films.

Add to that the fact that creative talent was already bailing from old school approaches (as no one wants to be found obsolete) and new talent comes into the market knowing computer assisted graphic arts and where does that leave Di$ney feature animation? Unable to continue to make Lion King sort of films (ongoing) if they wanted to.

Pixar appears to have the ability to turn out a new feature every 18 months ... who knows they may be able to approach doing that every 12 months ... how is any investor in his right mind going to suggest financing and creating a full bore Di$ney top-of-the-line animated film compared to trying to adopt the Pixar model?

Pixar's success is based on creating terrific stories with robust and interesting characters. If Di$ney hires some great story tellers they can do the same thing. If not, expect more Cinderella 3 1/2 - The Slipper's Revenge.

They say with Eisner going, Disney is trying and might have a slim chance of getting Pixar to stay

Yeah, they're trying, they know what they'll be losing out on... article

The problem is that Disney wants to go forward with Toy Story 3 without Pixar.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business...ness-headlines

No, we want them to fail because of this(from linked article above):


It is all about the money, not creativity and originality which used to be sacred to Disney company years ago. That good ol Eisner tradition lives on. At least Pixar lives and breathes what Disney used to embody. I say let em fail and then they will be begging for that 80-20 deal with Pixar.

What will make or break this film(success-wise) will be Tom Hanks and Tim Allen.

Return to Neverland. Not exactly a 2 I guess, but it is a sequel to a classic. I enjoyed it.

I respect your personal opinion and all, but... strong disagreement.

Were there better ones? Also was Lion King 1/2 bad? I thought it had some good publicity.

The Rescuers Down Under had beautiful animaton and a solid premise - it didn't seem as gratuitous as the Disney sequels of today.

Yeah, but The Rescuers Down Under was done years before Disney jumped onto the direct-to-video sequel bandwagon. IIRC, Disney's first direct-to-video sequel was The Return of Jafar.

I'm pretty sure the start to finish is still a few years, they just have so many in the pipeline now that they can come out every other year.

This is why movies like Shrek have so many quickly dated pop-culture references and why movies like Toy Story used all classic toys, or just archetypes of current toys that aren't quickly identifiable.

I noted it above too, but The Lion King 1 1/2 wasn't that bad. It gives some behind the scenes material without ruining too much mystery, and really riffs on itself more than anything.

Looks like all is not lost on the Disney/Pixar relationship. Here's hoping Iger and Jobs can pull something together. story

Thanks for the article. Jobs may do it again. Whatever it is.

God I hope he can. I think Eisner is the only one interested in seeing Direct to Video sequels.

Aladdin 2 & 3 were very good. I haven't liked any other Disney sequels though.

Revived the other thread but this one may be more relevant. Couldn't find this thread at first.

In an article(about poor DVD sales of the Incredibles) in the USA Today over the weekend, Jobs reported that the re-opened talks are going well with the Disney company.

Granted they weren't poor sales, they just didn't hit projections. Same thing happened with Shrek 2.