Word: disneyized
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...Disney, however, buzzed into Katzenberg's plans by slotting A Bug's Life for November, directly against Prince of Egypt. Disney had completely underestimated the phenomenon Toy Story would be, but it was expecting great things from A Bug's Life. It had its McDonald's meals and its merchandise deals all lined up. Pixar has alleged that Katzenberg was so intimidated that he offered to cancel Antz if Disney would move A Bug's Life away from Prince of Egypt. DreamWorks denies that, but Katzenberg eventually shifted Prince of Egypt to what he thought would be a safer date...
...Disney then promptly moved its remake of Mighty Joe Young, the story of a giant ape on the loose in New York City, out of summer and head to head with Prince in December. Although Disney is known for hardball scheduling tactics (it rereleased The Little Mermaid against Fox's Anastasia, for example), it insisted it had decided to move the ape well before DreamWorks switched Prince of Egypt. Late last week Disney moved Mighty Joe Young back a week...
Months earlier, though, Katzenberg had decided to give Disney a taste of its own medicine. He put Antz on a rush schedule to get it out five months early--beating A Bug's Life by several weeks. Katzenberg insists that he has "not a scintilla" of interest in tweaking Disney by upstaging Bugs but that he hurried his film merely because "the movie's great, and we could get it done...
...Disney studio chief Joe Roth insists he isn't bugged by the DreamWorks strategy. "I think Antz will come out and do fine, and I think Bug's Life will come out and do fine," he says. But Disney and Pixar apparently are not speaking with one voice on this topic. In fact, Jobs has irked his Disney partners by speaking to reporters without consulting them. Roth has asked Jobs to tone down his anti-DreamWorks rhetoric, without much luck. Jobs declines to comment...
Ironically, Disney's toughest competition may not come from Antz. The studio is pushing A Bug's Life back from Nov. 20 to Nov. 25--not, according to Roth, to move another week away from Antz but to avoid going mano a mano with Paramount's Rugrats, the movie version of the popular children's TV show, which opens Nov. 20 and is expected to be a powerful contender in the intense holiday family-entertainment race. But that move to Nov. 25 puts A Bug's Life in direct competition with Universal's sequel to the popular pig movie, Babe...