History TroubledProduction / AnimatedFilms

** ''WesternAnimation/{{Onward}}'' didn't have a particularly troubled production -- at worst, John Lasseter's being forced to resign from Disney threw the production team for a loop early on, an artist sued Disney for copyright infringement over the design of a vehicle seen in the movie, and an off-hand reference to one of the supporting characters being a lesbian caused it to be banned in certain countries -- but had the serious misfortune to be released right as the COVID-19 pandemic hit critical mass worldwide. This resulted in it posting an opening weekend only slightly better than the aforementioned ''The Good Dinosaur'', before dropping off a massive 73% the following weekend, and having its release in other countries either delayed or cancelled outright, all but ensuring that it will go down as by far and away the lowest-grossing Pixar movie ever.

** ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'': The animators were given no vacation time during the film's production in order for everything to be absolutely flawless, partially owing to Jeff Katzenberg's admitted impatience with the medium. Several of the artists' marriages were broken up as a result; some artists even claimed to buying new clothing on their break time because they couldn't go home to do laundry, and plenty more up and quit. The grueling work clearly shows, but Katzenberg decided not to do this again when he saw how miserable his staff was as a result.
** ''WesternAnimation/{{The Lion King|1994}}'' first suffered from [[AndYouThoughtItWouldFail lack of internal faith]] - only up-and-coming animators or people who wanted to do animals picked up the project, with most going to work on ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}'' instead. One of the directors, ''WesternAnimation/OliverAndCompany'' director George Scribner, who had even traveled with the other director Roger Allers and other people to Africa for reference, left as he disagreed on turning the film into a musical while his intention was focusing on the natural aspects. The script was so bad that it needed a reworking with the help of the directors of ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'' - and still was being fine-tuned during production, with completed scenes being reanimated due to dialogue changes. And just months before release, the Northridge earthquake hit Los Angeles, shutting off the studio and forcing animators to finish their work from home. Thankfully it was all worth it in the end.

** ''WesternAnimation/{{Onward}}'' didn't have a particularly troubled production -- at worst, John Lasseter's being forced to resign from Disney threw the production team for a loop early in production, an artist sued Disney for copyright infringement over the design of a vehicle seen in the movie, and an off-hand reference to one of the supporting characters being a lesbian caused it to be banned in certain countries -- but had the serious misfortune to be released right as the COVID-19 pandemic hit critical mass worldwide. This resulted in it posting an opening weekend only slightly better than the aforementioned ''The Good Dinosaur'', before dropping off a massive 73% the following weekend, and having its release in other countries either delayed or cancelled outright, all but ensuring that it will go down as by far and away the lowest-grossing Pixar movie ever.

** ''WesternAnimation/{{Dumbo}}'' was their first seriously problematic production. They had to make it on a lower than usual budget due to the studio's financial troubles, and then things really hit the fan when most of the studio's animation staff went on strike over atrocious working conditions, resulting in a lot of the film being completed by junior animators who weren't financially secure enough to go on strike, plus a few more experienced animators who crossed the picket lines knowing that the studio would more than likely be forced to close down if they didn't get ''Dumbo'' out on time, though even then only produced work that met the bare minimum standard that Disney would accept. The end product was the biggest critical and commercial success Disney had since ''WesternAnimation/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs'', but Walt Disney himself looked back on it with disdain afterwards, and to really stick the boot in, reported all the animators who had gone on strike as potential communists, resulting in more than a few careers being put on hold, if not ended permanently.

** ''WesternAnimation/TheGoodDinosaur'' was originally scheduled to be released in June 2014, but plot troubles caused its director and producer to be replaced, the original script and recorded dialogue scrapped, and the entire cast replaced. The film's release date was pushed back to November 2015, however a huge lack of promotion as well as the audiences being more interested in The Force Awakens caused it to become the first full-on BoxOfficeBomb in Pixar's history.

** ''WesternAnimation/TheGoodDinosaur'' was originally scheduled to be released in June 2014, but plot troubles caused its director and producer to be replaced, the original script and recorded dialogue scrapped, and the entire cast replaced. The film's release date was pushed back to November 2015, and a lack of promotion caused it to become the first full-on BoxOfficeBomb in Pixar's history.

** ''WesternAnimation/TheGoodDinosaur'' was originally scheduled to be released in June 2014, but plot troubles caused its director and producer to be replaced, the original script and recorded dialogue scrapped, and the entire cast replaced. The film's release date was pushed back to November 2015, and an indifferent audience response and lack of promotion caused it to become the first full-on BoxOfficeBomb in Pixar's history.

** ''WesternAnimation/TheGoodDinosaur'' was originally scheduled to be released in June 2014, but plot troubles caused its director and producer to be replaced, the original script and recorded dialogue scrapped, and the entire cast replaced. The film's release date was pushed back to November 2015.

** ''WesternAnimation/TheBlackCauldron'', the next film in the Disney animated canon, fared no better. Original producer Art Stevens was kicked off the project early on (and subsequently left Disney) after his planned version was deemed too light-hearted. In turn, original directors Dave Michener and John Musker left to work on ''WesternAnimation/TheGreatMouseDetective'', and were replaced by ''The Fox and the Hound'' directors Ted Berman and Richard Rich. Production was divided into units that had little contact with one another, resulting in a lack of direction for the animators, a miserable working environment, and a revolving door of personnel. The task of animating the film was also arduous, thanks to the brand-new APT (animated photo transfer) process used in its production, its use of computer animation (the first animated feature to do so), and being shot in Cinerama; as a result, its budget ballooned to $44 million, the most expensive animated feature ever produced at the time. Meanwhile, in 1984, Walt Disney Productions President and CEO Ron W. Miller was ousted by the Disney board of directors (partly due to the constant budget overruns on ''The Black Cauldron''), and replaced in the latter capacity by Michael Eisner, who brought in Jeff Katzenberg to head the animation department. After a test screening of the film's rough cut proved far too frightening for the children in the audience, Katzenberg ordered heavy cuts on the film; when producer Joe Hale objected to the demands, Katzenberg responded by editing the film himself. When informed by Hale of what Katzenberg was doing, Eisner told him to stop, and while he obeyed, he requested that the film be delayed from its intended Christmas 1984 release date to July 1985, so that it could be reworked. In the end, the film's inflated budget, and an unusually dark nature that made it difficult to market, caused ''The Black Cauldron'' to be the biggest box-office bomb in the canon’s history until ''WesternAnimation/TreasurePlanet''. It not only made back less than half its budget, ''[[FranchiseKiller but nearly bankrupted]]'' '''''[[FranchiseKiller the whole animation studio!]]''''' Hale was subsequently fired from the company, with Berman only avoiding the same fate because he left voluntarily around the time the film was released, and neither they nor Miller would ever work in animation again; Rich lasted a little bit longer and was put to work on ''WesternAnimation/OliverAndCompany'', only to be fired himself after falling out with the new studio management. In 2016 the company announced they were looking into doing a more faithful adaptation of the source material ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfPrydain'' in live action, but little has been heard of it since as the film's reputation continues to make people wary of having anything to do with it.

** ''WesternAnimation/TheBlackCauldron'', the next film in the Disney animated canon, fared no better. Original producer Art Stevens was kicked off the project early on (and subsequently left Disney) after his planned version was deemed too light-hearted. In turn, original directors Dave Michener and John Musker left to work on ''WesternAnimation/TheGreatMouseDetective'', and were replaced by ''The Fox and the Hound'' directors Ted Berman and Richard Rich. Production was divided into units that had little contact with one another, resulting in a lack of direction for the animators, a miserable working environment, and a revolving door of personnel. The task of animating the film was also arduous, thanks to the brand-new APT (animated photo transfer) process used in its production, its use of computer animation (the first animated feature to do so), and being shot in Cinerama; as a result, its budget ballooned to $44 million, the most expensive animated feature ever produced at the time. Meanwhile, in 1984, Walt Disney Productions President and CEO Ron W. Miller was ousted by the Disney board of directors (partly due to the constant budget overruns on ''The Black Cauldron''), and replaced in the latter capacity by Michael Eisner, who brought in Jeff Katzenberg to head the animation department. After a test screening of the film's rough cut proved far too frightening for the children in the audience, Katzenberg ordered heavy cuts on the film; when producer Joe Hale objected to the demands, Katzenberg responded by editing the film himself. When informed by Hale of what Katzenberg was doing, Eisner told him to stop, and while he obeyed, he requested that the film be delayed from its intended Christmas 1984 release date to July 1985, so that it could be reworked. In the end, the film's inflated budget, and an unusually dark nature that made it difficult to market, caused ''The Black Cauldron'' to be the ''biggest'' box-office bomb in the canon’s history (and among the biggest in Disney history in general). It not only made back less than half its budget, ''[[FranchiseKiller but nearly bankrupted]]'' '''''[[FranchiseKiller the whole animation studio!]]''''' Hale was subsequently fired from the company, with Berman only avoiding the same fate because he left voluntarily around the time the film was released, and neither they nor Miller would ever work in animation again; Rich lasted a little bit longer and was put to work on ''WesternAnimation/OliverAndCompany'', only to be fired himself after falling out with the new studio management. In 2016 the company announced they were looking into doing a more faithful adaptation of the source material ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfPrydain'' in live action, but little has been heard of it since as the film's reputation continues to make people wary of having anything to do with it.

* ''Bands on the Run'', a movie based on Silly Bandz, was by all accounts a nightmare to make according to Jared Norby (the art director) who explained the film's production via [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTITDiZP1Pk&pbjreload=10 an email]] to [[WebVideo/RebelTaxi Pan Pizza]].

** When the storyboards were sent overseas for a cheap Chinese animation company to animate, what they got was a product that had way worse animation than the final product, with ugly character designs, animation, and copyrighted texture photos lifted straight from Google Images (including a piece of unlicensed [[VideoGame/{{Pikmin}} Pikmin 2]] concept art). The animation company were also very lazy too; there was supposed to be a scene with a homeless person in a dumpster who was going to play with the titular Bands, but wasn’t given any clothes, so he ended up being cut from the plot, and was left in as an unintentionally creepy-looking, inanimate, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking naked]] corpse.

** ''WesternAnimation/AllDogsGoToHeaven'' had a few significant snags. First, Bluth and co. repeatedly hit walls trying to get an adaptation of the original Beth Brown story to work, ultimately deciding to scrap it and come up with a different story based on the title alone. Then, Bluth butted egos with original producer Creator/StevenSpielberg over Spielberg always having final say in their collaborations, leading to Bluth eventually deciding to produce the film independently. And lastly was the murder of [[Creator/JudithBarsi their lead actress]] after she had recorded all of her lines, forcing certain violent aspects of the film to be toned down, such as Killer's tommy gun becoming a laser blaster. Bluth also took umbrage with leads Creator/BurtReynolds and Creator/DomDeLuise constantly ad libbing, but relented when he realized how much funnier their ad libs were than the script itself. Production was otherwise smooth and the film met its intended release date of November 17th 1989... when it was [[DuelingMovies promptly curb-stomped]] by ''Disney/TheLittleMermaid''.

** ''Disney/{{Dumbo}}'' was their first seriously problematic production. They had to make it on a lower than usual budget due to the studio's financial troubles, and then things really hit the fan when most of the studio's animation staff went on strike over atrocious working conditions, resulting in a lot of the film being completed by junior animators who weren't financially secure enough to go on strike, plus a few more experienced animators who crossed the picket lines knowing that the studio would more than likely be forced to close down if they didn't get ''Dumbo'' out on time, though even then only produced work that met the bare minimum standard that Disney would accept. The end product was the biggest critical and commercial success Disney had since ''Disney/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs'', but Walt Disney himself looked back on it with disdain afterwards, and to really stick the boot in, reported all the animators who had gone on strike as potential communists, resulting in more than a few careers being put on hold, if not ended permanently.
** ''Disney/SleepingBeauty'' wasn't as problematic as some of their other productions, but suffered from quite a few conflicts of egos behind the scenes, mostly stemming from lead background designer Eyvind Earle inserting himself into more and more aspects of production with Walt Disney's encouragement, in an attempt to produce a more stylized and modern-looking Disney animated feature. This caused the budget to balloon massively, and despite ending up as among the top films in the 1959 U.S. box office, it received mediocre reviews and its bloated budget rendered it the worst financial failure of any of the studio's animated canon until ''Disney/TheBlackCauldron'' nearly a quarter-century later, resulting in the animation department being heavily downsized afterwards. It wasn’t until the years following Walt’s death that the film was VindicatedByHistory and that Disney would eventually resume making fairy tale films with ''Disney/TheLittleMermaid'', which kicked off its Renaissance period.
** ''Disney/TheFoxAndTheHound'' had many troubles going on with the production. Original director Wolfgang Reitherman, who had directed nearly all of Disney's animated films since the start of the 1960s, was KickedUpstairs early on after falling out with Disney CEO Ron Miller. Several veteran animators either retired or died early in production, batches of animation drawings were stolen, leaving several scenes to be rotoscoped from pencil tests, and Creator/DonBluth led an exodus of practically half the animation team, which delayed its release by six months and turned him into Disney's ArchEnemy for a long while.
** ''Disney/TheBlackCauldron'', the next film in the Disney animated canon, fared no better. Original producer Art Stevens was kicked off the project early on (and subsequently left Disney) after his planned version was deemed too light-hearted. In turn, original directors Dave Michener and John Musker left to work on ''Disney/TheGreatMouseDetective'', and were replaced by ''The Fox and the Hound'' directors Ted Berman and Richard Rich. Production was divided into units that had little contact with one another, resulting in a lack of direction for the animators, a miserable working environment, and a revolving door of personnel. The task of animating the film was also arduous, thanks to the brand-new APT (animated photo transfer) process used in its production, its use of computer animation (the first animated feature to do so), and being shot in Cinerama; as a result, its budget ballooned to $44 million, the most expensive animated feature ever produced at the time. Meanwhile, in 1984, Walt Disney Productions President and CEO Ron W. Miller was ousted by the Disney board of directors (partly due to the constant budget overruns on ''The Black Cauldron''), and replaced in the latter capacity by Michael Eisner, who brought in Jeff Katzenberg to head the animation department. After a test screening of the film's rough cut proved far too frightening for the children in the audience, Katzenberg ordered heavy cuts on the film; when producer Joe Hale objected to the demands, Katzenberg responded by editing the film himself. When informed by Hale of what Katzenberg was doing, Eisner told him to stop, and while he obeyed, he requested that the film be delayed from its intended Christmas 1984 release date to July 1985, so that it could be reworked. In the end, the film's inflated budget, and an unusually dark nature that made it difficult to market, caused ''The Black Cauldron'' to be the ''biggest'' box-office bomb in the canon’s history (and among the biggest in Disney history in general). It not only made back less than half its budget, ''[[FranchiseKiller but nearly bankrupted]]'' '''''[[FranchiseKiller the whole animation studio!]]''''' Hale was subsequently fired from the company, with Berman only avoiding the same fate because he left voluntarily around the time the film was released, and neither they nor Miller would ever work in animation again; Rich lasted a little bit longer and was put to work on ''Disney/OliverAndCompany'', only to be fired himself after falling out with the new studio management. In 2016 the company announced they were looking into doing a more faithful adaptation of the source material ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfPrydain'' in live action, but little has been heard of it since as the film's reputation continues to make people wary of having anything to do with it.

** ''Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast'': The animators were given no vacation time during the film's production in order for everything to be absolutely flawless, partially owing to Jeff Katzenberg's admitted impatience with the medium. Several of the artists' marriages were broken up as a result; some artists even claimed to buying new clothing on their break time because they couldn't go home to do laundry, and plenty more up and quit. The grueling work clearly shows, but Katzenberg decided not to do this again when he saw how miserable his staff was as a result.
** ''Disney/TheLionKing'' first suffered from [[AndYouThoughtItWouldFail lack of internal faith]] - only up-and-coming animators or people who wanted to do animals picked up the project, with most going to work on ''Disney/{{Pocahontas}}'' instead. One of the directors, ''Disney/OliverAndCompany'' director George Scribner, who had even traveled with the other director Roger Allers and other people to Africa for reference, left as he disagreed on turning the film into a musical while his intention was focusing on the natural aspects. The script was so bad that it needed a reworking with the help of the directors of ''Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast'' - and still was being fine-tuned during production, with completed scenes being reanimated due to dialogue changes. And just months before release, the Northridge earthquake hit Los Angeles, shutting off the studio and forcing animators to finish their work from home. Thankfully it was all worth it in the end.
** ''Disney/TheEmperorsNewGroove'' started as ''Kingdom of the Sun'', a PrinceAndPauper epic directed by 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 [[AnimationLeadTime 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. The ending then had to be rewritten just before release because composer Sting disagreed with the moral message and was going to quit the project. It was all documented in ''Film/TheSweatbox'', a film shot by Sting's wife Trudie Styler.

** ''Disney/{{Bolt}}'' suffered from this in spades. The film was originally helmed by ''Disney/LiloAndStitch'' writer-director Creator/ChrisSanders, 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 [[Creator/PixarRegulars 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, causing the latter to jump ship to [[Creator/DreamWorksAnimation [=DreamWorks=]]], 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''.
** ''Disney/{{Tangled}}'' took six years, a change in directors, a complete rehaul of the film's original FracturedFairyTale premise, and a cost of $260 million to see the light of day. It currently ranks as the sixth most expensive film in Hollywood history behind ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanOnStrangerTides'', ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanAtWorldsEnd'', ''Film/JusticeLeague2017'', ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'' and ''Film/JohnCarter''. Happily for the future of [[Disney/{{Frozen}} other Disney fairy tale adaptations]], it became Disney's biggest hit since ''Disney/TheLionKing''.

** ''Disney/WreckItRalph'' went through a number of problems along the way. Originally planned to have been screened before ''Disney/{{Tangled}}'', it had went through a number of cancelled and uncancelled calls along the way before finally getting the go-ahead. As well, the many video game companies ([[ValuesDissonance especially Japanese ones]]) had strict guidelines as to how their characters should act - Nintendo had guides as to how [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Bowser]] should drink a cup of coffee, Sega had them reanimate a scene were [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog Sonic]] loses some rings because they said he could only lose rings if he were hit and the only reason Q*Bert got prominence in the movie was because Namco took offence at VideoGame/DigDug being the target.
** ''Disney/{{Frozen}}'' actually had a relatively easygoing production -- at least in terms of the people involved getting along with each other. The problem was instead the ''story''.

** To begin with, it had a deadline that was far too short--production began in May 1938, and it was due Christmas 1939; this is less than half of the four years of production that went into ''Disney/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs'', the film it was meant to emulate to begin with.

** ''WesternAnimation/TheThiefAndTheCobbler'', as documented in 2012's ''Persistence of Vision''. The film, originally conceived as Williams' magnum opus, took ''three decades'' to make due to Williams' incessant perfectionist attitude and constant story revisions that led to dozens of missed deadlines, rewrites, and redone animation. The project was being churned out at a slow pace, until Williams gained funding from Warner Bros. after his success on ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'' under the agreement that the film be completed for a specific date and amount of money. Unfortunately, Williams' perfectionism caused him to miss the deadline and, fifteen minutes shy of completion, turned it over to the Completion Bond Company and was replaced with low-budget animator Fred Calvert, resulting in a great amount of OffModel animation and {{Disneyfication}}. The resulting film was picked up by Miramax, who added unnecessary celebrity voices to the titular characters and songs to cash in on Disney's ''Disney/{{Aladdin}}'', along with retitling the film ''Arabian Knights''. The film, finally released in 1993, was a financial and critical failure, killing Williams' career and animation studio, causing him to retire from animating. It wouldn't be until a few decades later when dedicated fans would find unfinished footage and edit together ''The [=ReCobbled=] Cut'', a film that comes close to Williams' true vision for the film.

** ''Disney/TheBlackCauldron'', the next film in the Disney animated canon, fared no better. Original producer Art Stevens was kicked off the project early on (and subsequently left Disney) after his planned version was deemed too light-hearted. In turn, original directors Dave Michener and John Musker left to work on ''Disney/TheGreatMouseDetective'', and were replaced by ''The Fox and the Hound'' directors Ted Berman and Richard Rich. Production was divided into units that had little contact with one another, resulting in a lack of direction for the animators, a miserable working environment, and a revolving door of personnel. The task of animating the film was also arduous, thanks to the brand-new APT (animated photo transfer) process used in its production, its use of computer animation (the first animated feature to do so), and being shot in Cinerama; as a result, its budget ballooned to $44 million, the most expensive animated feature ever produced at the time. Meanwhile, in 1984, Walt Disney Productions President and CEO Ron W. Miller was ousted by the Disney board of directors (partly due to the constant budget overruns on ''The Black Cauldron''), and replaced in the latter capacity by Michael Eisner, who brought in Jeff Katzenberg to head the animation department. After a test screening of the film's rough cut proved far too frightening for the children in the audience, Katzenberg ordered heavy cuts on the film; when producer Joe Hale objected to the demands, Katzenberg responded by editing the film himself. When informed by Hale of what Katzenberg was doing, Eisner told him to stop, and while he obeyed, he requested that the film be delayed from its intended Christmas 1984 release date to July 1985, so that it could be reworked. In the end, the film's inflated budget, and an unusually dark nature that made it difficult to market, caused ''The Black Cauldron'' to be Disney's absolute biggest box-office bomb ''ever''. It not only made back less than half its budget, [[FranchiseKiller but almost killed the]] '''''[[FranchiseKiller entire]]''''' [[FranchiseKiller canon]]. Hale was subsequently fired from the company, with Berman only avoiding the same fate because he left voluntarily around the time the film was released, and neither they nor Miller would ever work in animation again; Rich lasted a little bit longer and was put to work on ''Disney/OliverAndCompany'', only to be fired himself after falling out with the new studio management. In 2016 the company announced they were looking into doing a more faithful adaptation of the source material ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfPrydain'' in live action, but little has been heard of it since as the film's reputation continues to make people wary of having anything to do with it.

*** ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory2'' didn't have it any better. The project had started as a Direct-to-Video movie, handled by a smaller part of Pixar who had made the ''Toy Story'' computer games while the main staff worked on ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife''. Once they saw what had been done of the [=DTV=] movie, they were not only underwhelmed but horrified that Disney liked it enough to give it a theatrical run. Pixar begged Disney to let them scrap it and start over, to which they complied, but also refused to budge their stone-set November release date, only nine months away (this still being an era where computer animation [[AnimationLeadTime required just as much time to produce as traditional animation]]). This eventually took its toll on the exhausted and over-extended creative team, who then had to convince John Lasseter, who was planning to take a break after a grueling number of years heading up ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory1'' and ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'', to come in on short notice and help the team retool the film and get it out on time. The team were not only able to complete the film, but also churned out a film that more than held its own to the first; the meddling of Disney, though, helped kick-start the plan for the studio to operate independently, as well as dividing up their staff into smaller sections in order to not burn out their entire crew with each film.
*** Additionally, all progress on ''Toy Story 2'' was very nearly lost during production when [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dhp_20j0Ys a mistyped command to Pixar's servers]] resulted in more than 90% of the movie being deleted before the servers could be unplugged. To make matters worse, [[OhCrap the backups they had of the movie in-house were corrupted]]. It looked like the movie was down the crapper, but fortunately, the movie was saved when it was discovered that staff member Galyn Susman had the entire movie and all of its files copied to her home PC so she could work on it from home.

** First off, Seth Rogen spent ''eight years'' finding a studio interested in the project. Those that were sent the script rejected it due to the religious subject matter and obscene content. Even Sony, the eventual distributor of the film, rejected it at first sight until Rogen re-sent the script to them a couple of years later. Mind you, Seth had no problem pitching ''The Interview'' to Sony despite its heavy themes, so that should speak volumes.

** The ''Franchise/ToyStory'' films have all been well known for having this.
*** [[WesternAnimation/ToyStory The first film]] was subject to constant ExecutiveMeddling, pushing to make it [[DarkerAndEdgier more adult and cynical]]. Pixar, this being their first feature, dutifully followed the notes from the executives, even if they didn't agree with them. When a preview cut was declared unwatchable, Jeffrey Katzenberg, then head of animation at Disney, asked with some concern why on earth Pixar had followed all the notes he and others had sent. Production was shut down for two weeks, while Lasseter and the others basically rewrote the entire movie, into pretty much what they wanted in the first place. The movie would survive and get finished in time for release, though Katzenberg's job did not (he ended up quitting Disney a year before the movie's release to start up Creator/DreamWorks).
*** ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory2'' didn't have it any better. The project had started as a Direct-to-Video movie, handled by a smaller part of Pixar who had made the ''Toy Story'' computer games while the main staff worked on ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife''. Once they saw what had been done of the [=DTV=] movie, they were not only underwhelmed but horrified that Disney liked it enough to give it a theatrical run. Pixar begged Disney to let them scrap it and start over, to which they complied, but also refused to budge their stone-set November release date, only nine months away (this still being an era where computer animation [[AnimationLeadTime required just as much time to produce as traditional animation]]). This eventually took its toll on the exhausted and over-extended creative team, who then had to convince John Lasseter, who was planning to take a break after a grueling number of years heading up ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'' and ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'', to come in on short notice and help the team retool the film and get it out on time. The team were not only able to complete the film, but also churned out a film that more than held its own to the first; the meddling of Disney, though, helped kick-start the plan for the studio to operate independently, as well as dividing up their staff into smaller sections in order to not burn out their entire crew with each film.

** ''Disney/TheBlackCauldron'', the next film in the Disney animated canon, fared no better. Original producer Art Stevens was kicked off the project early on (and subsequently left Disney) after his planned version was deemed too light-hearted. In turn, original directors Dave Michener and John Musker left to work on ''Disney/TheGreatMouseDetective'', and were replaced by ''The Fox and the Hound'' directors Ted Berman and Richard Rich. Production was divided into units that had little contact with one another, resulting in a lack of direction for the animators, a miserable working environment, and a revolving door of personnel. The task of animating the film was also arduous, thanks to the brand-new APT (animated photo transfer) process used in its production, its use of computer animation (the first animated feature to do so), and being shot in Cinerama; as a result, its budget ballooned to $44 million, the most expensive animated feature ever produced at the time. Meanwhile, in 1984, Walt Disney Productions President and CEO Ron W. Miller was ousted by the Disney board of directors (partly due to the constant budget overruns on ''The Black Cauldron''), and replaced in the latter capacity by Michael Eisner, who brought in Jeff Katzenberg to head the animation department. After a test screening of the film's rough cut proved far too frightening for the children in the audience, Katzenberg ordered heavy cuts on the film; when producer Joe Hale objected to the demands, Katzenberg responded by editing the film himself. When informed by Hale of what Katzenberg was doing, Eisner told him to stop, and while he obeyed, he requested that the film be delayed from its intended Christmas 1984 release date to July 1985, so that it could be reworked. In the end, the film's inflated budget, and an unusually dark nature that made it difficult to market, caused ''The Black Cauldron'' to be one of Disney's biggest ever box-office bombs, making back less than half its budget. Hale was subsequently fired from the company, with Berman only avoiding the same fate because he left voluntarily around the time the film was released, and neither they nor Miller would ever work in animation again; Rich lasted a little bit longer and was put to work on ''Disney/OliverAndCompany'', only to be fired himself after falling out with the new studio management. In 2016 the company announced they were looking into doing a more faithful adaptation of the source material ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfPrydain'' in live action, but little has been heard of it since as the film's reputation continues to make people wary of having anything to do with it.

** ''Disney/SleepingBeauty'' wasn't as problematic as some of their other productions, but suffered from quite a few conflicts of egos behind the scenes, mostly stemming from lead background designer Eyvind Earle inserting himself into more and more aspects of production with Walt Disney's encouragement, in an attempt to produce a more stylized and modern-looking Disney animated feature. This caused the budget to balloon massively, and on release it earned decent reviews, but would prove to be the worst financial failure of any of the studio's animated canon until ''Disney/TheBlackCauldron'' nearly a quarter-century later, resulting in the animation department being heavily downsized afterwards.

* ''WesternAnimation/FoodFight'', a film featuring Roger Rabbit-esque cameos by advertising mascots starring Creator/CharlieSheen was trapped in development for 10 years. Originally set for a 2003 release until being delayed to 2005, it became even further delayed when the harddrives containing all the animation files were stolen and the studio had to start all over again on an even lower budget. The final result was finished in 2009, given a small theatrical release and started to emerge direct to video in other markets in 2012.

* Famed animator Creator/RichardWilliams has had two films during his time in the industry that have proved absolute headaches to make.

** ''WesternAnimation/BanjoTheWoodpileCat'' was an attempt by Bluth and his RagtagBunchOfMisfits working with him at Disney during UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfAnimation to [[TaughtByExperience teach themselves how to make the kind of movies Disney refused to make any more]]. To do so required a lot of after-hours work done on a shoe-string budget over the span of six years, working entirely out of Bluth's garage and using second hand equipment which was starting to fall apart. At one point, a malfunctioning movieola used for pencil tests pissed Don off to the point that he [[PercussiveMaintenance kicked it]], resulting in the machine ''eating the film,'' at which point they sprang for a new one.

** ''Disney/{{Bolt}}'' suffered from this in spades. The film was originally helmed by ''Disney/LiloAndStitch'' 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 [[Creator/PixarRegulars 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, causing the latter to jump ship to [[Creator/DreamWorksAnimation [=DreamWorks=]]], 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''.

* Every! Single! Film! made by Creator/DonBluth, enough to force him into retirement in 2000.

* Famed animator Creator/RichardWilliams has had two films during his time in the industry that have been absolute headaches.

** ''WesternAnimation/TheThiefAndTheCobbler'', as documented in 2012's ''Persistence of Vision''. The film, originally conceived as Williams' magnum opus, took ''three decades'' to make due to Williams' incessant perfectionist attitude and constant story revisions that led to dozens of missed deadlines, rewrites, and redone animation. The project was being churned out at a slow pace, until Williams gained funding from Warner Bros. after his success on ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'' under the agreement that the film be completed for a specific date and amount of money. Unfortunately, Williams' perfectionism caused him to miss the deadline and, fifteen minutes shy of completion, turned it over to the Completion Bond Company and was replaced with low-budget animator Fred Calvert, resulting in a great amount of OffModel animation and {{Disneyfication}}. The resulting film was picked up by Miramax, who added unnecessary celebrity voices to the titular characters and songs to cash in on Disney's
''Disney/{{Aladdin}}'', along with retitling the film ''Arabian Knights''. The film, finally released in 1993, was a financial and critical failure, killing Williams' career and animation studio, causing him to retire from animating. It wouldn't be until a few decades later when dedicated fans would find unfinished footage and edit together ''The [=ReCobbled=] Cut'', a film that comes close to Williams' true vision for the film.

*** ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory4'' was slated to be co-directed with John Lasseter and Josh Cooley during the early stages of production, but 2017 saw a signficant shakeup in production staff that saw Lasseter leaving as he couldn't balance his time directing the film with his job running Disney Animation and Pixar at the same time. He would eventually be removed from the project entirely when sexual harassment allegations forced him to leave Disney and Pixar the following year. Around that same time, original screenwriters Rashida Jones and Will MacCormack left the film due to CreativeDifferences, resulting in a huge majority of the original screenplay being thrown out and rewritten. There was also the fate of Mr. Potato Head, whose voice actor Creator/DonRickles [[AuthorExistenceFailure passed away]] before he could record his lines. Since Pixar didn't want to replace him or write the character out entirely, they had to go through decades of unused recordings of Rickles as the character in order to construct a new performance for him, and they had to consult with Rickles' estate just to do it.