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Cancelled animated films
- Thread starter Kunmui
- Start date
Wild Life sounded...bizarre. The animation in the article looked interesting but I can't say I don't blame Disney for canceling the film. After the underperformance of Dinosaur, this film was just too weird to spend hundreds of millions of dollars making.
The second article doesn't seem to acknowledge the gay themes as the reason it was canceled, the first article seems to say the film was going to be targeted towards adults under the Touchstone banner, in that case I can definitely see why it was canceled, No mainstream adult audience is going to watch an animated film about the nightlife scene with animals and heavy gay themes. I'm surprised the film was even greenlit with such a high budget, unless the artists and writers turned it into a very different film from what Disney had imagined, hence why it was shut down.
I seem to recall a film called Party Animals that was being talked about in 2002 or 2003, it was to be produced by the Farrelly Brothers and directed by Seth MacFarlane, it was going to be the first CGI animated R-rated comedy, it was about two pigeons in the city and their raunchy adventures. I never heard anything else about the film, other than its initial announcement. It was going to be distributed by 20th Century Fox.
I've never heard Seth MacFarlane talk about it, which is odd, it was going to be his first ever theatrical animated feature, I would think he would at least offer an explanation as to why it never panned out.
Edit: Here's an article from Animation Magazine from early 2003, talking about the film:
Seth MacFarlane, creator and exec. producer of the Fox animated series The Family Guy, tells Animation Magazine Online that he has teamed up with the makers of Kingpin and There's Something About Mary to produce the first R-rated computer animated feature.
The Farrelly Brothers are producing and MacFarlane is taking on writer/director duties for Party Animals for Twentieth Century Fox. While Macfarlane is now a veteran in the animation business, this will be the second toon foray for Bobby and Peter Farrelly, the reigning kings of irreverent humor and gross-out comedy, who directed the 2001 pic Osmosis Jones. They will be working with the Fox Animation division.
Party Animals is based on the book Frisco Pidgeon Mambo by C.D. Payne. The satirical yarn follows three pigeons that get booted from their comfortable digs in a Berkeley lab to face life on the streets of San Francisco.
While specific details of the film version are still under wraps, MacFarlane will tell us "It's going to be pretty groundbreaking, I think. I'm having a really good time with it."
The second article doesn't seem to acknowledge the gay themes as the reason it was canceled, the first article seems to say the film was going to be targeted towards adults under the Touchstone banner, in that case I can definitely see why it was canceled, No mainstream adult audience is going to watch an animated film about the nightlife scene with animals and heavy gay themes. I'm surprised the film was even greenlit with such a high budget, unless the artists and writers turned it into a very different film from what Disney had imagined, hence why it was shut down.
I seem to recall a film called Party Animals that was being talked about in 2002 or 2003, it was to be produced by the Farrelly Brothers and directed by Seth MacFarlane, it was going to be the first CGI animated R-rated comedy, it was about two pigeons in the city and their raunchy adventures. I never heard anything else about the film, other than its initial announcement. It was going to be distributed by 20th Century Fox.
I've never heard Seth MacFarlane talk about it, which is odd, it was going to be his first ever theatrical animated feature, I would think he would at least offer an explanation as to why it never panned out.
Edit: Here's an article from Animation Magazine from early 2003, talking about the film:
Seth MacFarlane, creator and exec. producer of the Fox animated series The Family Guy, tells Animation Magazine Online that he has teamed up with the makers of Kingpin and There's Something About Mary to produce the first R-rated computer animated feature.
The Farrelly Brothers are producing and MacFarlane is taking on writer/director duties for Party Animals for Twentieth Century Fox. While Macfarlane is now a veteran in the animation business, this will be the second toon foray for Bobby and Peter Farrelly, the reigning kings of irreverent humor and gross-out comedy, who directed the 2001 pic Osmosis Jones. They will be working with the Fox Animation division.
Party Animals is based on the book Frisco Pidgeon Mambo by C.D. Payne. The satirical yarn follows three pigeons that get booted from their comfortable digs in a Berkeley lab to face life on the streets of San Francisco.
While specific details of the film version are still under wraps, MacFarlane will tell us "It's going to be pretty groundbreaking, I think. I'm having a really good time with it."
A bit of extra trivia: Most of the unused vocal music on the soundtrack (pretty much almost everything Sting wrote) was actually recorded for Kingdom of the Sun, but was removed when the tone of the film switched from a dark epic to a buddy film.
...Isn't it always the other way around?
From what I remember, the Knuckles movie came about when one of the writers of the Archie Sonic comic (the writer who heads the Knuckles corner of the mythos) pitched the idea of an adaption (or original story) based on his work. All western parties were on board (meaning Dreamworks, Archie, and Sega of America), but it was ultimately Sega of Japan who shot the idea down.
Damn shame too, as it was the closest that the Sonic franchise ever got to a theatrical film.
...Isn't it always the other way around?
From what I remember, the Knuckles movie came about when one of the writers of the Archie Sonic comic (the writer who heads the Knuckles corner of the mythos) pitched the idea of an adaption (or original story) based on his work. All western parties were on board (meaning Dreamworks, Archie, and Sega of America), but it was ultimately Sega of Japan who shot the idea down.
Damn shame too, as it was the closest that the Sonic franchise ever got to a theatrical film.
Get off the sinking ship!
New member
Ralph Bakshi was making a film called Last Days of Coney Island back in 2006. He was unable to find funding to continue it though and it sits unfinished to this day.
Josh Medrano
New member
It probably would have been nearly impossible to advertise for at the time. Anything animated with talking animals is gonna grab the attention of kids, and parents tend to assume that anything with talking animals is a kids movie, so off to the movie theater they go. Even Fox tries to avoid that can of worms.
Now that Sega has opened up an animation studio, I bet Sega would consider the idea of it. But then again, Sonic would likely get the feature instead of him.
I forgot about this one. I even heard somewhere his son was helping out with most of production of the film. I wonder if Bakshi would consider on doing a R rated CG film.
I forgot about this one. I even heard somewhere his son was helping out with most of production of the film. I wonder if Bakshi would consider on doing a R rated CG film.
Well, the film was being produced by Fox Searchlight (the independent arm of Fox Film, which normally produces riskier non-mainstream films) so it may have gotten a limited release.
I just find it odd that MacFarlane has never mentioned what happened with this project. It was going to be his directorial debut with two high profile comedy producers.
I just find it odd that MacFarlane has never mentioned what happened with this project. It was going to be his directorial debut with two high profile comedy producers.
Giovanna P
New member
I guess the neverhood movie is part of this now, same goes for the new earthworm jim cartoon.
ILM was going to make a series of CGI movie for Universal back in the early 2000 and late 90's. They did a test for their first film, Frankstein. A long time ago, Harry at Aintitcoolnews had a link to a video test of the footage. The film was going to be in black and white like the old Universal monsters films.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m1qS8rUrws
After Quest for Camlot, Warner Brothers Feature Animation was going to make alot of animated films. Some of the ideas that they had were Aquaman, New Gods, and Charlie & The Chocolate Factory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m1qS8rUrws
After Quest for Camlot, Warner Brothers Feature Animation was going to make alot of animated films. Some of the ideas that they had were Aquaman, New Gods, and Charlie & The Chocolate Factory.
Disney was originally going to make The Search For Mickey Mouse its 50th animated classic. The basic plot was that Mickey Mouse is kidnapped, so Basil the mouse (from The Great Mouse Detective) searches for him, meeting at least one character from every Disney animated classic. The idea sounds more like an extended episode of "House Of Mouse" than a real movie, and while giving Basil such a large part makes sence story-wise, it seems weird from a marketing point of view, as The Great Mouse Detective is one of the least popular animated movies.
After Jonah: A Veggietales Movie, Big Idea was going to make another movie called The Bob And Larry Movie. It was going to show how Bob and Larry met, and was supposed to be the first Veggietales production to feature humans. It got cancelled after Big Idea went bankrupt.
After Jonah: A Veggietales Movie, Big Idea was going to make another movie called The Bob And Larry Movie. It was going to show how Bob and Larry met, and was supposed to be the first Veggietales production to feature humans. It got cancelled after Big Idea went bankrupt.
swanny903 !
New member
I wouldn't say "heavy gay themes" as much as "Rock and Rule" with Adult Swim-style gay jokes and HSM's hat boy. Hunchback has more of what I'd call gay themes.
As for pulling the plug on Wildlife, Disney feature animation by the 90s was a bit of a runaway train. I think Katzenberg going into the editing room on Black Cauldron set a bad precedent, because it opened up the idea that completed animation could be used as dailies- during the 90s/early 00s, fully animated scenes, rather than boards or animatics, were occasionally reworked or scrapped. And that's why the film budgets inflated to the point where DTVs looked good to the bean counters.
As for pulling the plug on Wildlife, Disney feature animation by the 90s was a bit of a runaway train. I think Katzenberg going into the editing room on Black Cauldron set a bad precedent, because it opened up the idea that completed animation could be used as dailies- during the 90s/early 00s, fully animated scenes, rather than boards or animatics, were occasionally reworked or scrapped. And that's why the film budgets inflated to the point where DTVs looked good to the bean counters.