Troubled Production/Real Life/Western Animation

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Examples of Troubled Productions in Real Life Western Animation include:

• The 90's Incredible Hulk Animated Adaptation is this according to the original producer.
• Disney and Pixar have had several of these:
  • The very first Toy Story was subject to constant Executive Meddling, pushing to make it more adult and cynical. When a preview cut was declared unwatchable, production was shut down for two weeks, while Lasseter and the others basically rewrote the entire movie.
  • The Emperors New Groove started as Kingdom of the Sun, a Prince and Pauper epic directed by The Lion King's co-director Roger Allers. Since the writers weren't very successful in adding original material and test audiences weren't reacting well, another director, Mark Dindal, was hired to see if things evolved. As the deadline got closer and Allers and Dindal were basically working at two movies simultaneously (the former with a drama, and the latter with a comedy), the higher-ups intervened and Allers quit. After a six-month interval where Dindal and some writers reworked the movie, the film became the screwball comedy that eventually saw the light of day. It was all documented in The Sweatbox, a film shot by Trudie Styler (as her husband Sting wrote songs for the movie) that Disney makes sure that never gets released.
  • Ratatouille was originally developed in 2001 by Jan Pinkava, but Pixar lost faith in Pinkava and ultimately replaced him with Brad Bird.
  • Bolt suffered from this in spades. The film was originally helmed by Lilo and Stitch director Chris Sanders, who wanted to make another quirky animated family film. To that end, he envisioned American Dog, which followed a popular television star dog named Henry who (after being knocked out and waking up on a train to Nevada) enlists the help of two other talking animals, including a cat and oversized bunny rabbit, to drive him back home (while believing he's still in a television show). The film went through several different cuts (and suggestions from John Lasseter and other Pixar directors on how to improve the film), but Sanders reportedly rejected all of the changes. Lasseter then fired Sanders from the project, and the film was drastically reworked (under a constrained timeframe) into the final product. Tellingly, American Dog is not mentioned anywhere on the film's DVD features, and only receives a passing reference in the making-of book The Art of Bolt.
• The film version of Astro Boy managed to go through no less than three different directors, several different writers and a budget that spiraled out of control due to constant production delays. The bottom fell out when the film's production company went bankrupt a few months before opening. The final product manages to show the chaotic production with its unevenness and lack of direction in terms of plot.
• Family Dog, a Steven Spielberg produced animated spin-off of Amazing Stories didn't debut until 1992 seven years after the original "Family Dog" episode of Amazing Stories had aired. Only five episodes of the finished product aired.
• The CGI filim Foodfight, a production of Threshold Entertainment and directed by Lawrence Kasanoff, is a peculiar case in which its Troubled Production is more fascinating than the movie itself. Originally slated for a Christmas 2003 release and reaching a budget of $45 Million, it faced several setbacks and issues, forcing the studio to constantly postpone the film's release. The movie eventually did see a mainly Direct to DVD release in 2012, the final product being an utter trainwreck to the surprise of no one.
• The Emoji Movie, a CGI film released in 2017, is a peculiar case as its production coincided with, though not directly responsible for the cancellation of Genndy Tartakovsky's planned Popeye movie, itself a victim of Executive Meddling prior to its end. The film in question, already one of the worst animated movies of the year upon release, has also gained notoriety for being a virtual "perfect storm" example of poor and shoddy corporate decision making. This is complete with rushed development and its own share of controversy prior to its release, be it questionable marketing or excessively politicized PR. To say nothing of the scorn heaped upon it even before the movie was finished.

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