History ExecutiveMeddling / AnimatedFilms

** The idea that Kovu was actually Scar's son was dropped to merely being hinted at. This was done so that Kovu & Kiara wouldn't be KissingCousins by the end.

** In a positive example, ''WesternAnimation/TheLion King1994'' was going to have a total DownerEnding akin to ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'', but it was forced to be rewritten because the executives at Creator/{{Disney}} didn't like it.

** In a positive example, ''WesternAnimation/The Lion King1994'' was going to have a total DownerEnding akin to ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'', but it was forced to be rewritten because the executives at Creator/{{Disney}} didn't like it.

* Franchise/TheLionKing:

* In a positive example, ''WesternAnimation/{{The Lion King|1994}}'' was going to have a total DownerEnding akin to ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'', but it was forced to be rewritten because the executives at Creator/{{Disney}} didn't like it.
** Likewise, after an early version of Mufasa’s death scene was shown to Studio head Jeffrey Katzenberg, he pointed to his dry eye and said, “See this? I’m not crying!” A more positive example than many, since whatever version they showed to him, the scene in the finished film stands among Disney's all-time biggest {{Tear Jerker}}s.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKingIISimbasPride'':
** Several short, but important scenes were axed, including the original (much more emotionally charged) last moments of Nuka and Zira. The reason for the cuts were due to them being perceived as not child-friendly.

* ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory1'': Disney Studios head Jeffrey Katzenberg continually pushed for Creator/{{Pixar}} to make the film more adult, edgy and cynical, which led Woody into being a {{Jerkass}} and the main form of humor being based off of insults. When it was shown to Disney, everyone hated the sketches for the first half of the movie and Tom Hanks complained of how much of a jerk Woody was as he recorded the lines for the story reels, but the result backfired [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools in a positive way]]; after a screening for the Disney executives known as "The Black Friday Incident" on November 19 1993, Roy Disney declared it the worst thing he'd ever seen, while company president Peter Schneider wanted the entire film scrapped. Katzenberg realized that he had a negative effect on the film's production after a discussion with Thomas Schumacher, and Creator/{{Pixar}} was given two weeks to rewrite the film as they saw fit.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheBlackCauldron'' had nearly twenty minutes cut off the finished film, courtesy of then newly-installed Disney Studios chief Jeffery Katzenberg, before it hit theaters, causing obvious skips in the soundtrack.
* ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory1'': Disney Studios head Jeffrey Katzenberg continually pushed for Creator/{{Pixar}} to make the film more adult and cynical, which led Woody into being a {{Jerkass}} and the main form of humor being based off of insults. The result backfired, but [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools in a positive way]]; after a screening for the Disney executives known as "The Black Friday Incident", Roy Disney declared it the worst thing he'd ever seen, while company president Peter Schneider wanted the entire film scrapped. Katzenberg realized that he had a negative effect on the film's production after a discussion with Thomas Schumacher, and Creator/{{Pixar}} was given two weeks to rewrite the film as they saw fit.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheEmperorsNewGroove'' started out as a PrinceAndPauper movie called ''Kingdom of the Sun'', which would have been a full-on musical with a serious tone akin to ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast''. Its overly long production time, poor reception from test audiences, and the lackluster performances of ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame'' led to Creator/{{Disney}} halting production and forcing the team to retool the movie.

* ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'': Disney Studios head Jeffrey Katzenberg continually pushed for Creator/{{Pixar}} to make the film more adult and cynical, which led Woody into being a {{Jerkass}} and the main form of humor being based off of insults. The result backfired, but [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools in a positive way]]; after a screening for the Disney executives known as "The Black Friday Incident", Roy Disney declared it the worst thing he'd ever seen, while company president Peter Schneider wanted the entire film scrapped. Katzenberg realized that he had a negative effect on the film's production after a discussion with Thomas Schumacher, and Creator/{{Pixar}} was given two weeks to rewrite the film as they saw fit.

* ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'': Disney Studios head Jeffrey Katzenberg continually pushed for Creator/{{Pixar}} to make the film more adult and cynical, which led Woody into being a {{Jerkass}} and the main form of humor being based off of insults. The result backfired, but [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools in a positive way]]; after a screening for the Disney executives known as "The Black Friday Incident", Roy Disney declared it the worst thing he'd ever seen, while company president Peter Schneider wanted the entire film scrapped. Katzenberg [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone realized that he had a negative effect on the film's production]] after a discussion with Thomas Schumacher, and Creator/{{Pixar}} was given two weeks to rewrite the film as they saw fit.

** As revealed on the commentary for ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueDarkApokolipsWar'', James Tucker[[note]]who started as a storyboard artist for the ''Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse'' and first became a producer on ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', though he's probably best known as the showrunner of ''WesternAnimation/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' and ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'', and had taken over from Creator/BruceTimm as overseer of the WesternAnimation/DCUniverseAnimatedOriginalMovies line with ''WesternAnimation/SupermanUnbound''[[/note]] was told during production of his second film, ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueTheFlashpointParadox'', to make a SharedUniverse similar to the ''ComicBook/New52'', which was spawned from ''TFP''[='=]s source material, ''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}'' and likewise to used ''TFP'' as a launching point for the DCAMU.

* An unusual case occurred with ''{{WesternAnimation/Zootopia}}''. Although the film had been in production for over four years, their internal story walk-through process kept revealing that the dark, "tame-collar" story-line was considered too dark and [[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy made the city of Zootopia an unappealing place that the audience did not want Nick or Judy to remain in]]. Instead of scuttling the project, Disney Animation Executives trusted the development process they had put in place and gave the creative team an opportunity to entirely rework the story just nine months before the scheduled release date. The team came up with shifting to Judy as the main protagonist, replacing the shock collars with the concept of social bias/prejudice, and rallied the animators to overhaul the movie but still make the release date. The result was the second Disney animated feature to cross a billion dollars worldwide making it their most successful animated feature after ''{{WesternAnimation/Frozen|2013}}''.

* ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'': Disney Studios head Jeffrey Katzenberg continually pushed for Creator/{{Pixar}} to make the film more adult and cynical, which led Woody into being a {{Jerkass}} and the main form of humor being based off of insults. The result backfired, but [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools in a positive way]]; after a screening for the Disney executives known as "The Black Friday Incident", Roy Disney declared it the worst thing he'd ever seen, while company president Peter Schneider wanted the entire film scrapped. Katzenberg realized that he had a negative effect on the film's production after a discussion with Thomas Schumacher, and Creator/{{Pixar}} was given two weeks to rewrite the film as they saw fit.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}}'' was originally going to be traditionally animated, and first titled "The Snow Queen", then "Anna and the Snow Queen". After ''WesternAnimation/ThePrincessAndTheFrog'' under-performed at the box office, they made it CGI and the title was changed to "Frozen" ([[MeaningfulName which actually fits the film's theme more, anyway]]). Even the SignatureSong, "Let It Go", went through a slight lyric change. The third line was originally going to to be "''Couldn't keep it in, God knows I tried''". It wasn't because they wanted to remove religious references (as some people initially thought), but it didn't want to be considered to be taking the Lord's name in vain. The final line is instead "''Couldn't keep it in, heaven knows I tried''", which fits better with the song's pattern anyway.

* ''Film/CoolWorld'' was originally supposed to be about half-doodle/half-human [[PunnyName Debbie Dallas]], out to kill her human father for having sex with her cartoon mother. Paramount executive Frank Mancuso, Jr. had the script secretly rewrote handed back to Creator/RalphBakshi, changing the animated horror/thriller story to a ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'' clone about an artist getting trapped in the comic book he created when he was in prison and his creation, Holly Would, having sex with him so she can become human and unleash the cartoon creations into the real world. Bakshi also intended to have Creator/DrewBarrymore as the female lead, but instead they stuck him with Kim Basinger, who thought that it was a ''[[AnimationAgeGhetto children's movie]]''.

** Almost all of the already completed voice performance of Creator/ChloeMoretz were replaced with Creator/MileyCyrus for marketing purposes.

** As revealed on the commentary for ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueDarkApokolipsWar'', James Tucker (who started as a storyboard artist for the ''Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse'' and first became a producer on ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', though he's probably best known as the head producer of ''WesternAnimation/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' and ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'', and had taken over from Creator/BruceTimm as overseer of the WesternAnimation/DCUniverseAnimatedOriginalMovies line with ''WesternAnimation/SupermanUnbound'') was told during production of his second film, ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueTheFlashpointParadox'', to make a SharedUniverse similar to the ''ComicBook/New52'', which was spawned from ''TFP''[='=]s source material, ''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}'' and likewise to used ''TFP'' as a launching point for the DCAMU.

** Likewise, after an early version of Mufasa’s death scene was shown to Studio head Jeffrey Katzenberg, he pointed to his dry eye and said, “See this? I’m not crying!”

* Tony Cervone, the director for ''WesternAnimation/{{SCOOB}}'', said how he wasn't fond of the fact that, except for Creator/FrankWelker as Scooby Doo, the Scooby Doo and Hanna Barbera characters were recast with big name celebrities.

* In ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'', the video game companies had a major say in what their characters can do and not do. Bandai Namco did not like the plan to have VideoGame/DigDug be the homeless game hero, forcing them to change it to VideoGame/QBert. Nintendo had shown the animators the proper way to have [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros King Bowser]] hold a cup of coffee and Sega made the animators reanimate the scene where Ralph escapes ''Hero's Duty'' and into ''Sugar Rush'' because of Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog's reaction - Sonic was originally supposed to be scared out of his rings when Ralph's escape pod raced by, but Sega had said that only being hit caused him to do so.

** Tucker also revealed in an interview for Creator/DCUniverse's ''DC Daily'' for ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueDarkApokolipsWar'', he was similarly given an edict to warp up the universe and make that the GrandFinale for the DCAMU.

* Tony Cervone , the director for ''WesternAnimation/{{SCOOB}}'' , said how he wasn't fond of the fact that, except for Creator/FrankWelker as Scooby Doo, the Scooby Doo and Hanna Barbera characters were recast with big name celebrities.

** As revealed on the commentary for ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueDarkApokolipsWar'', James Tucker (who started as a storyboard artist for ''Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse'' and first became a producer on ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', though he's probably best known as the head producer of ''WesternAnimation/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' and ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'') had taken over from Creator/BruceTimm as overseer of the WesternAnimation/DCUniverseAnimatedOriginalMovies line with ''WesternAnimation/SupermanUnbound'' was told during production of his second film, ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueTheFlashpointParadox'', to make a SharedUniverse similar to the ''ComicBook/New52'', which was spawned from ''TFP''[='=]s source material, ''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}'' and likewise to used ''TFP'' as a launching point for the DCAMU.

** As revealed on the commentary for ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueDarkApokolipsWar'', James Tucker (who started as a storyboard artist for ''Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse'' and first became a produce on ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', though he's probably best known as the head producer of ''WesternAnimation/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' and ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'', taken over from Creator/BruceTimm as overseer of the WesternAnimation/DCUniverseAnimatedOriginalMovies line with ''WesternAnimation/SupermanUnbound'') was told during production of his second film, ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueTheFlashpointParadox'', to make a SharedUniverse similar to the ''ComicBook/New52'', which was spawned from ''TFP''[='=]s source material, ''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}'' and likewise to used ''TFP'' as a launching point for the DCAMU.
** Tucker also revealed in an interview for Creator/DCUniverse's ''DC Daily'' for ''WEsternAnimation/JusticeLeagueDarkApokolipsWar'', he was similarly given an edict to warp up the universe and make that the GrandFinale for the DCAMU.

* The ''WesternAnimation/DCAnimatedMovieUniverse''[='=s very existence was predicated on this.
** As revealed on the commentary for ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueDarkApokolipsWar'', James Tucker (who started as a storyboard artist for ''Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse'' and first became a produce on ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', though he's probably best known as the head producer of ''WesternAnimation/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' and ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'', taken over from Creator/BruceTimm as overseer of the WesternAnimation/DCUniverseAnimatedOriginalMovies line with ''WesternAnimation/SupermanUnbound'') was told during production of his second film, ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueTheFlashpointParadox'' to make a SharedUniverse similar to the ''ComicBook/New52'', which was spawned from ''TFP''[='=]s source material, ''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}'' and likewise to used ''TFP'' as a launching point for the DCAMU.

* As revealed on the commentary for ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueDarkApokolipsWar'', the very existence of the ''WesternAnimation/DCAnimatedMovieUniverse'' (for which the film is the GrandFinale) is the result of one. James Tucker, who started as a storyboard artist for ''Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse'' and first became a produce on ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', though he's probably best known as the head producer of ''WesternAnimation/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' and ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'', taken over from Creator/BruceTimm as overseer of the WesternAnimation/DCUniverseAnimatedOriginalMovies line with ''WesternAnimation/SupermanUnbound''. During production of his second film, ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueTheFlashpointParadox'', Tucker was told to do a SharedUniverse similar to the ''ComicBook/New52'', which was spawn from ''TFP''[='=]s source material, ''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}'' and likewise to used ''TFP'' as a launching point for the DCAMU.

* As revealed on the commentary for ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueDarkApokolipsWar'', the very existence of the ''WesternAnimation/DCAnimatedMovieUniverse'' (for which the film is the GrandFinale) is the result of one. James Tucker, who started as a storyboard artist for ''Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse'' and first became a produce on ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', though he's probably best known as the head producer of ''WesternAnimation/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' and ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'', taken over from Creator/BruceTimm as overseer of the WesternAnimation/DCUniverseAnimatedOriginalMovies line with ''WesternAnimation/SupermanUnbound''. During production of his second film, ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueTheFlashpointParadox'', Tucker was told to do a SharedUniverse similar to the ComicBook/New52, which was spawn from ''TFP''[='=]s source material, ''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}'' and likewise to used ''TFP'' as a launching point for the DCAMU.

* As revealed on the commentary for ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueDarkApokolipsWar'', the very existence of the ''WesternAnimation/DCAnimatedMovieUniverse'' (for which the film is the GrandFinale) is the result of one. James Tucker. Tucker, who started as a storyboard artist for ''Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse'' and first became a produce on ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', though he's probably best known as the head producer of ''WesternAnimation/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' and ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'', taken over from Creator/BruceTimm as overseer of the WesternAnimation/DCUniverseAnimatedOriginalMovies line with ''WesternAnimation/SupermanUnbound''. During production of his second film, ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueTheFlashpointParadox'', Tucker was told to do a SharedUniverse similar to the ComicBook/New52, which was spawn from ''TFP''[='=]s source material, ''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}'' and likewise to used ''TFP'' as a launching point for the DCAMU.