Disney has made a decision about long-form animation for Disney+, and it’s a bold move for the company!
For decades, Disney has always been the dominant force in feature animation. Even with challengers like Don Bluth, DreamWorks, and others, Disney and Pixar would be tops at the box office and win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
But the last few years have been rough for the company. Sure, the pandemic meant Pixar films like Soul and Turning Red had to be sent to Disney+. But there’s also the bombs of Strange New Worlds and Wish.
Inside Out 2 was a big hit, yet Disney seems to be resting more on sequels than on original fare. Now, a big move has occurred, with Disney announcing that it is canceling plans for a Tiana animated series that was to come to Disney+.
The show would have continued the adventures of the heroine of The Princess and the Frog, a throwback to the 1990s when shows based on Aladdin and The Little Mermaid were around. According to The Hollywood Reporter, a Disney spokesperson said the show “ultimately could not get to where it needed to be given production costs.”
There do seem to be plans for a short film, likely tied to the popular Tiana’s Bayou Adventure ride at the parks. However, this is an interesting direction as it comes right after Moana 2, intended to be a Disney+ series, was refitted into a movie that’s earned a billion dollars at the box office.
This now connects to Disney no longer planning long-form animation projects for Disney+ as they focus on theatrical releases. And that may be a good thing for the company to regain its past glory.
Why Disney needs to focus on features
Ask any Disney animation fan and they’ll mostly agree that a big contribution to the end of the Disney Renaissance was the direct-to-video sequel glut.
From the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, Disney was obsessed with direct-to-video sequels to many of their animated hits. Granted, a couple could be fun like the Aladdin and Lion King films, but the majority were, at best, weak and, at worse, outright atrocious and unneeded.
The animation was subpar compared to the features and most screamed out cheaper quality. Today, those would have been streaming originals and it diluted the Disney brand. It’s really not a coincidence this was the time Dreamworks was asserting control.
Granted, the shift from 2D animation to CGI was an inevitable change that affected the company. Princess was meant to revive it, but the underperformance at the box office ended that. Fans can debate if, say, Tangled or Frozen would have been more effective as hand-drawn movies rather than computers.
Still, it was a big distraction from the animated features to have these cheaper sequels clogging store shelves. The diminishing returns proved that and it’s a good thing Pixar never got into that trend. Disney seems to be concentrating more on feature theatrical movies and that’s a good thing for the company.
While it’d be nice to see Disney do more original fare than rely on sequels, it’s better they put the creative focus on the big-screen movies. Moana 2 was criticized for its TV show origins showing in the rough storyline and Disney can’t repeat that for future films. Starting a project with the intention for it being a theatrical film is the best approach.
This move does seem to only be for main Disney projects as we still have animated series based on Marvel shows like Spider-Man and X-Men. We may also get more Pixar fair like their recent Win or Lose series. Yet for major Disney animated projects, theatrical is the way to go.
Some eight to ten-minute bits on Disney+ can work, like Bluey and shorts based on characters. But a full-on series based on Frozen wouldn’t be a good idea when there are more films to be made. It distracts from the stories and the weaker animation undermines any attempt.
Disney needs to get back that magic it once had in terms of animation and return to making it a big-screen spectacle. To get back to movies that enthralled audiences enough to get them to theaters, not wait for a streaming release. While animated series could be good, focusing on the big screen now is a bigger move for Disney.