Word: anastasias
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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There's no mistaking Hollywood's sudden urge to outfox the mouse. Anastasia is the first in a salvo of all-animated features from three deep-pocketed Disney rivals: Fox, Warner Bros. and DreamWorks SKG. The next few years will see the biggest splurge of cartoon features ever. But after the exclamation point come the question marks. Are there ways to make popular animated films that don't slavishly follow the rules Walt and the boys made up in the 1930s? Are studios jumping on the toon trolley just as the form has shown signs of losing its commercial luster...
...Anastasia, which cost about $53 million, is getting a blast of promotion equal to that given any Disney cartoon--and 35% more marketing support than Fox lavished on last year's smash Independence Day. With such a price tag, a studio boss gets to hope out loud. "I'd like it to be, at a minimum, the most successful non-Disney animated film," says Fox filmed-entertainment chief Bill Mechanic, probably alluding to the $90 million earned at the box office by Warner's 1996 Space Jam. "But I really hope it will compete with the best Disney pictures." Best...
...other studio heads, who can be stirred to animation animus when they shiver in the shadow of the cartoon colossus. "We're rooting for Anastasia," says Bob Daly, Warner Bros. and Warner Music Group chairman and co-CEO. "It would be great for the entire industry if a non-Disney animated film became a real...
...would also exact a little revenge on Disney, which is countering Anastasia with a 17-day rerelease of its 1989 hit The Little Mermaid as well as the kid-oriented Robin Williams comedy Flubber. "Disney is throwing the kitchen sink against Anastasia," says Daly. "They're doing everything to kill it. And I guess if you were in their shoes you'd do the same thing." One of the men in those shoes, Disney motion-pictures-group chairman Richard Cook, deems it business as usual. Disney has tried--and succeeded in--undercutting most of its rivals' big animated films...
...parent News Corp.: "We should have done a Simpsons movie five years ago." Simpsons creator Matt Groening and his colleagues toyed with expanding a 1993 episode, Kamp Krusty, before deciding no. "But," notes Chernin, "we also wanted to start a traditional cel animation division and thought Anastasia was a compelling property to begin with...