List of abandoned projects

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blackcauldron85
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Re: Pixar Animation Studio

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JeanGreyForever wrote:
blackcauldron85 wrote:I read Bob Iger's book, "The Ride of a Lifetime," yesterday (Random House, 2019). The context is it's Iger's first trip to the Pixar campus; he wanted to visit them before fully deciding on buying them. On Page 139:
It's not much, but obviously it sounds like The Secret Life of Pets from that brief description. Has anyone heard of a pet movie that had previously been in development at Pixar circa 2005/2006?
That's interesting for sure. I wonder if that idea found its way over to Illumination afterwards or if it was just a coincidence that a similar concept was considered there as well.
https://www.slashfilm.com/lee-unkrich-t ... xar-pitch/
Unkrich confirmed that he made the pitch, but that his story idea was a departure from what The Secret Life of Pets ultimately ended up being (cough, a Toy Story knock-off), and was instead a “Hitchcockian murder mystery.”

“True. It was a Hitchcockian murder mystery. I put it aside to direct Toy Story 3,” Unkrich said on Twitter
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Sotiris
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Re: List of abandoned projects

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It sounds like Disney's Fraidy Cat.
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Re: List of abandoned projects

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In a new interview, John Musker and Ron Clements revealed that "A Princess of Mars" was a project in development at Disney Animation in the '90s and Jeffrey Katzenberg wanted them to direct it instead of Treasure Planet after Aladdin. The project fell through because Disney lost the rights.
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Re: List of abandoned projects

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I wonder what the project was about. It sounds a little more interesting than Mort did (not that Mort was ever going to happen).
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Re: List of abandoned projects

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I figure it would have remained quite faithful to the book. It would have been interesting to have two WDAS adaptations based on books by the same author. One thing's for certain, an adaptation of "A Princess of Mars" by Musker & Clements would have been a million times better over what Andrew Stanton gave us.
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Re: List of abandoned projects

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I had looked up "A Princess of Mars" via Wikipedia and didn't find anything. Is this related to that Mars Needs Moms movie (I might've fudged the title :lol: )?
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Re: List of abandoned projects

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A Princess of Mars is the novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs that Disney's John Carter was based on.
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Re: List of abandoned projects

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I bet R&J were glad that Disney lost the rights so they could finally make TP!!! That's super interesting that it was going to be an animated film. While I'm a fan of the live-action film, I'm super duper curious as to how it would look.
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Re: List of abandoned projects

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Sotiris wrote:A Princess of Mars
I looked back at my search and realized I wrote "in" instead of "of." No wonder. I'm kind of glad it didn't happen then, since I didn't care for John Carter. But who knows, maybe it would've been better in M&C's version of the story.
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Re: List of abandoned projects

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It's interesting that they were considering adapting that novel at WDAS. I'm glad Musker and Clements were able to make their dream project, which was Treasure Planet, but I would've liked an animated Disney version of A Princess of Mars too. I think it could've worked as an animated feature. Also, it would've come out before Avatar, and wouldn't have been accused of ripping off that movie, as Andrew Stanton's film was. I don't dislike John Carter, but one of its main flaws in my opinion, is that the main characters are not charismatic enough. That's one of the things that would've probably been improved if Musker and Clements had been the directors, as they are quite good with lead characters.
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Re: List of abandoned projects

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In 2014, a pilot for a new Winnie the Pooh series was produced by Cartoon Saloon for Disney. It featured a modern setting. It is unknown if this is the same project where Bobby Moynihan would have voiced Pooh. You can find artwork for it, here.
Monica Armiño wrote:In 2014, I was commissioned by Cartoon Saloon to make 3 backgrounds for a pitch about Winnie the Pooh for a TV show. Finally, Disney gave them the green light and they made a pilot.
Source: https://monicaarmino.com/winnie-the-pooh/
Ross Stewart wrote:I was commissioned by Cartoon Saloon to create key conceptual images for a pilot show from Disney of Winnie the Pooh. Here are some of those concepts..
Source: https://rossstewart.net/winnie-the-pooh-pilot-concepts/
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Re: List of abandoned projects

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The 2nd link says Not Found, but here it is on Archive.org:

https://web.archive.org/web/20210117033 ... -concepts/

This is interesting...Pooh not sounding like Pooh, whether or not this is the project Bobby Moynihan was going to work on, after being bothered by Chip 'N Dale's new voices (and Huey, Dewey, and Louie's), surely would have bothered me, even if I didn't realize this back then... But I don't mind the art style...at first glance I was thinking, What shape is Pooh's head; it looks odd. But then I was like, that's pretty cute. But I like the Paul Rudish Mickey cartoons so Pooh probably wouldn't bother me.

I wonder why it was never greenlit.

To jog people's memories, here's the earlier post on the series:

https://www.dvdizzy.com/forum/viewtopic ... an#p741935
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Re: List of abandoned projects

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Didn't know John Carter was planned as an animated feature at one point. Who knows, maybe it could have been a blockbuster if they did the marketing right.

Also found this about the John Carter movie that never was:

https://www.mouseplanet.com/9831/The_Di ... Never_Were
In 1992, director McTiernan brought on another writer, Sam Resnick, who had just finished scripting a well-received made-for-television movie about Robin Hood starring actor Patrick Bergin that McTiernan had produced.

Actors Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts were offered the two leading roles. Cruise apparently did not care for the script that he was shown.

McTiernan became convinced that, in order for the film to be successful, instead of disguised elephants and camels, most of the effects needed to be done in CGI (computer generated imagery). However, in 1990, CGI was in its infancy and so was highly expensive and time consuming. In addition, CGI was not as advanced as it is today in terms of creating realistic, organic creatures.

Several sources have claimed that Disney determined that the final budget for the project with the salaries for McTiernan and the stars added to the amount necessary for all the special effects was estimated at nearly $120 million, making it one of the most expensive films ever made.
Which is probably the reason why they wanted to do it as a hand-drawn project instead.
A year later, Disney made one final attempt to take a different approach with two new screenwriters. They brought in novelist George R.R. Martin, perhaps best known today as the writer responsible for the series of novels that inspired HBO’s television series A Game of Thrones. The first volume in that series was published about three years after his work on this project. In addition, Disney also brought in science fiction novelist Melinda Snodgrass. At the time, she had recently finished writing several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and served as story editor for that series during its second and third seasons.
(Martin and Snodgrass had also cooperated on the book Windhaven a few years earlier.)
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Re: List of abandoned projects

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WDAS was developing a movie about a boy and his dragon called "The Earth and the Sky".
Stephen Anderson wrote:This is artwork from a movie I pitched right after ‘Meet the Robinsons’ was released. This piece is by the amazing Claire Keane. The idea was to do ‘Fox and the Hound’ but with a boy and a dragon. My boss at the time was intrigued but felt the medieval dragon genre was played out. Then ‘Game of Thrones’ became a hit so there was that. I was then asked to be a part of ‘Winnie the Pooh’ so the project went on the shelf. Months later, Dreamworks announced their revamped ‘HTTYD’ with similar story elements so I never went back to the idea.
Source: https://twitter.com/stevehatguy/status/ ... 2769021956
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Re: List of abandoned projects

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Interesting, but I think we are actually talking about two different projects here. Meet the Robinson was released in 2007, and Stephen Anderson suggested the movie called "The Earth and the Sky" shortly after. Then he went to work on Winnie the Pooh (2011), and heard that DreamWorks would be making their own dragon movie (How to Train Your Dragon), which was released in 2010, which killed his project.
Then, in 2016, he mentions an unnamed project he is working on at Disney: https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/stephe ... isney-film
And in the twitter comment that mention Earth and the Sky, he says further down on the page that he worked on this project for five years before he gave up (or maybe it was Disney that gave up).
Don't know if that other project has been named anywhere else.
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Re: List of abandoned projects

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https://www.vulture.com/2022/10/an-oral ... racle.html
Sanders: Jeffrey Katzenberg once flew me out to New York City because he wanted us to do West Side Story with cats. I boarded this huge sequence where these cats were battling each other. Jeffrey said, “We’re going to fly to New York, and you’re going to pitch it to Leonard Bernstein.” All of a sudden, I was on Disney’s corporate jet. I went to the room and I set up all the boards, and I practiced and I practiced and I practiced. As it turned out, Leonard Bernstein didn’t show up for the meeting. He sent representatives. I’m sure they were people of some prominence; there was one woman in particular who had a lot of necklaces on. But you could tell it wasn’t going well. Like, Oh, I think we may have made a mistake by coming here.
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Re: List of abandoned projects

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A little more info on the West Side Story with cats pitch by Arthur Laurents.
And the talk about Disney wanting to do "West Side Story" as an animated version with cats? "Someplace I have a seven-minute reel that they made with white cats and black cats," he said. "I remember the Maria cat came down the rope of a steamer illegally into the country. In the end I remember the Tony cat got run over. You can't believe how terrible it was. But they proposed it. See, 'Cats' had just opened on Broadway."
Source: https://www.courant.com/ctnow/arts-thea ... story.html
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Re: List of abandoned projects

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This is a strange thing to say, but I think I could have liked an animal bend version of that story. :lol: That said, I have to think Disney would not have allowed the ending of Tony being run over to go through, it would've been a more tragic ending than I think Disney's ever allowed for one of their animated films. Most of the worst things that happen in Disney movies happen early or midways, seldom at the end, leaving you on a sad note like that. Even in Pocahontas, John Smith lives even if they're not together and there is some happiness in the idea that the characters grew from having met one another despite them being apart (regardless of what the real story of Pocahontas was), much like The Fox and the Hound.
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Re: List of abandoned projects

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This sounds like it was a bad idea and I'm glad it wasn't made. Disney would eventually do their cat version of Oliver and their Romeo and Juliet with Pocahontas.
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Re: List of abandoned projects

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Old interview with John Sanford:
https://www.fullecirclemagazine.com/200 ... nford.html
In 1999, story on Atlantis was winding down, so I began thinking about what I’d do next., Don Hahn suggested that I try pitching my own idea to direct...decided I’d try to pitch a superhero movie. I had an idea that I kind of jammed with Sanders on...Tom [Schumacher]...cautioned me that they had a similar project up at Pixar (The Incredibles) and that I should try my best to my project away from theirs...Well, I only had one hero, a girl, and was focusing on the relationship between the girl and her mother with the superhero story being a framing device, much the same way we used the war story in Mulan. I worked on the project for about 4 months. Man, that was fun. I got Jeff Ranjo and Joe Mosier to do rough character designs and got to work with Chris Williams for a few weeks to hammer out some structure issues...Anyway, at the end of the four months, we made a big presentation to Tom and Pam Coats, the head of development. Tom said “This is great. I can’t believe how well you’ve thought this out. It’s got the right tone, it’s emotional, the relationships are fun. It’s great. Unfortunately, it is still too close to The Incredibles...Later, I’d see The Incredibles and see that he was right. There were story beats in both that were identical!
That same interview talks about canceled HOtR shorts.
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