Word: studio
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...decade, CG animation has achieved a commercial and artistic revolution. It has also achieved something else: it annihilated the Disney cartoon feature. Now, with a fresh team at the company--CEO Robert Iger, film-studio boss Richard Cook and animation chief David Stainton--Disney has begun the arduous process of remaking itself. "It's like a battleship changing course," Cook says. "It takes a while, but we're moving in the right direction...
...transition from pencils to pixels hasn't been easy for the studio. Hand-drawn feature animation was an art form it created and then nurtured for six decades, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 through the '94 smash The Lion King. Who could imagine that the empire would crumble? And why, when Disney had a distribution pact with Pixar, should the parent studio pursue CG animation? The box office answered both questions briskly: of the 10 top-grossing animated films since 1995, when Toy Story became the first computerized cartoon feature, all but one (Disney's Tarzan...
Gradually, Disney's box-office magic evaporated; Treasure Planet, in 2002, cost about $140 million yet cadged only $38 million at the domestic wickets. Worse, relations with Pixar soured--though the premier CG studio may sign up with Disney again. Last week Disney CFO Thomas Staggs said the film division expected a loss of more than $250 million for the year's fourth fiscal quarter...
...debate at the studio went beyond the commercial or even artistic implications of CG. Hand-drawn animation was the Disney religion. Stainton, while overseeing a reduction of the animation staff from 2,200 to 725, worked hard to win over the old boys. He argued that CG actually frees artists "to produce movies of extraordinarily different styles. There are limitations in hand drawn. In CG you can do things that are much more complicated." But some still thought the very notion of a change sacrilegious. To abandon the grand old style for 3-D would be like tearing down Chartres...
Thus does the Disney ship set its new course. There's no telling if Chicken Little will be a hit that convinces Wall Street and mall rats alike that the old studio has a brand-new bag. It has a lot of catching up to do. Sony's animation division will release its first CG feature, Open Season, in 2006. Blue Sky and DreamWorks aren't going anywhere. And Pixar would be a fierce competitor. But if Disney thrives in CG, a little chicken shall lead it. And from now on, they hope, the sky's the limit. --With reporting...