History TroubledProduction / AnimatedFilms

** Once things began rolling, the problems only continued. Director Greg Tiernan forced animators at Nitrogen Studios to work overtime seven days a week without extra pay thanks to the film's low budget, and anyone who stood up against Tiernan's tyranny would be fired and blackballed from the company and be uncredited in the film (reportedly, only ''half'' of the animators who worked on the film were credited). Sadly, Greg got away with these actions because there's no animation union in Vancouver (where Nitrogen is located), meaning that he could do as he pleased with his employees, who had nowhere to turn to. However, three years after production ended, the animators sued for their unpaid overtime and won, so there's that little victory.

* ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'' went through a number of problems along the way. Originally planned to have been screened before ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'', it had went through a number of cancelled and uncancelled calls along the way before finally getting the go-ahead. Also, 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 [[Franchise/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 depicted as destitute. Creator/{{Capcom}} even had the filmmakers remove an appearance from [[Franchise/MegaMan Dr. Wily]] as a member of Bad-anon.

* Creator/BlueSkyStudios was working on an [[WesternAnimation/Nimona2023 adaptation]] of ''Webcomic/{{Nimona}}'' wanting to release it in 2020. A few complications hit as Disney acquired parent company 20th Century Fox and the Usefulnotes/Covid19Pandemic forced the staff to work at home, but aside from a delay to 2022, things kept going. And then in 2021, [[ScrewedByTheNetwork Disney decided to shut down Blue Sky as a cut-cutting measure and cancelled the film,]] that was apparently only ten months from completion. Three staffers also claimed Disney executives [[https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-disapproved-same-sex-kiss-nimona-movie-former-staffers-say-2022-3 had heavily pushed back against the inclusion of a same-sex kiss in the film]] prior to its cancellation. Thankfully, one year later [[NetworkToTheRescue Annapurna Films and Netflix decided to revive the project]], with Dneg picking up where Blue Sky left off as ''Nimona'' was scheduled for a 2023 release.

** First off, Creator/SethRogen spent ''eight years'' finding a studio interested in the project. Those that were sent the script rejected it for its religious subject matter and obscene content, and even the film's distributor Creator/ColumbiaPictures rejected it until Rogen sent it to them again a couple of years later. For comparison, Seth had no problem pitching ''Film/TheInterview'' to Sony Pictures in spite of that film's heavy political themes.

** [[WesternAnimation/ToyStory1 The first film]] was subject to constant ExecutiveMeddling, with Disney pushing to make it [[DarkerAndEdgier more adult and cynical]]. This being their first feature, Pixar dutifully followed Disney's notes 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 the others had sent. Production was shut down for two weeks while Lasseter and the others basically rewrote the entire film into pretty much what they wanted it to be in the first place. The film would survive and be finished in time for release, although Katzenberg's job did not (he ended up quitting Disney a year before its release to start Creator/DreamWorksAnimation).

*** The project started as a direct-to-video sequel handled by a smaller division of Pixar that 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 also 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 refused to budge their stone-set November release date, which was only nine months away (this still being an era where computer animation [[ProductionLeadTime 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. Not only were they able to complete the film, but they also made a film that more than held its own to the first. The meddling of Disney, however, helped kickstart the plan for the studio to operate independently, dividing up their staff into smaller sections in order to avoid burning out their entire crew with each film.

* ''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 Jeffrey 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/AChristmasCarol1971'': According to one of the special's assistant animators, Tony White, the special fell several months behind schedule by the time he joined its last three months of production. The animators had to pull 7 day workweeks with 14 hours of work per day to pull it off, and the last four days of production were an insane scramble to finish it in time, with the animators putting in an entire ''4 nonstop days and nights, with unpaid''[[note]] however, [[PetTheDog the animators were given a one month holiday break as compensation]][[/note]] ''overtime without sleep''! And even then, Williams was forced to use {{rotoscoping}} for a few scenes just to make it feasible to finish the animation. And the special was finished exactly one hour before it met its deadline! Despite this, it's now regarded as one of the greatest pieces of TV animation and one of the best adaptations of Dickens' story ever done, [[WorthIt even earning a theatrical release and winning an Oscar in the end]].

*** Additionally, in a specific incident, all the film's progress was 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 animation being deleted before the servers could be unplugged. Because the backups Pixar had at the studio were corrupted, it looked like the movie was down the crapper, but it was thankfully saved when it was discovered that technical director Galyn Susman had the entire film and all of its files copied to her desktop computer so she could work on it from home.

* ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'' went through a number of problems along the way. Originally planned to have been screened before ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'', it had went through a number of cancelled and uncancelled calls along the way before finally getting the go-ahead. Also, 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 [[Franchise/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 depicted as destitute.

* Creator/BlueSkyStudios was working on an adaptation of ''Webcomic/{{Nimona}}'' wanting to release it in 2020. A few complications hit as Disney acquired parent company 20th Century Fox and the Usefulnotes/Covid19Pandemic forced the staff to work at home, but aside from a delay to 2022, things kept going. And then in 2021, [[ScrewedByTheNetwork Disney decided to shut down Blue Sky as a cut-cutting measure and cancelled the film,]] that was apparently only ten months from completion. Three staffers also claimed Disney executives [[https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-disapproved-same-sex-kiss-nimona-movie-former-staffers-say-2022-3 had heavily pushed back against the inclusion of a same-sex kiss in the film]] prior to its cancellation. Thankfully, one year later [[NetworkToTheRescue Annapurna Films and Netflix decided to revive the project]], with Dneg picking up where Blue Sky left off as ''Nimona'' was scheduled for a 2023 release.

* Creator/{{Disney}} is notorious for having multiple movies that went through this. Some went on to become their finest works, while others [[CreatorBacklash they would much rather forget]]. Moreover, during the reign of Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, it was even ''chronic'':
** ''WesternAnimation/{{Dumbo}}'' was Disney's first seriously problematic production, as they had to make it on a lower than usual budget due to financial troubles. 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, as well as 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 the film out on time, although even then Disney would only accept produced work that met the bare minimum standard. The end product was the biggest critical and commercial success Disney had since their first feature ''WesternAnimation/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs'', but Walt Disney himself looked back on it with disdain afterwards, and to really stick the boot in, he reported all the animators who had gone on strike as potential communists -- only the ringleaders were actually dragged before the House Un-American Activities Committee, but it still resulted in more than a few careers being put on hold or ended permanently.
** ''WesternAnimation/SleepingBeauty'' wasn't as problematic as some of Disney's other productions, but suffered from quite a few conflicts of ego 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. As for the voice cast, in regards to the role of King Stefan, they replaced Hans Conried (who was working on this film when he was responsible for performing live-action reference as King Stefan for animators to capture his expressions and movements for the character) with Taylor Holmes for no apparent reason, making it unknown who voiced Lord Duke and fueling off unanswered questions. This led to the production being prolonged and the budget to balloon massively, and despite being second only to ''[[Film/BenHur1959 Ben-Hur]]'' at the 1959 box office because of its reissues, the film received mixed critical reviews and became the worst financial failure in the Disney animated canon until ''WesternAnimation/TheBlackCauldron'' nearly a quarter-century later, resulting in the animation department being heavily downsized and nearly causing the studio to go bankrupt until ''WesternAnimation/TheGreatMouseDetective'' helped save the studio, thanks to it’s critical and financial success. It wasn't until after Walt's death that the film was VindicatedByHistory and Disney would resume making fairy tale films with ''WesternAnimation/{{The Little Mermaid|1989}}'', which kicked off its Renaissance period.
** ''WesternAnimation/RobinHood1973'' marked the start of a sustained period of troublesome productions that would last until well into the following decade. The story had a long and difficult gestation; originally conceived as a modernized take set in the southern United States, director Wolfgang Reitherman and Disney's executives became concerned that such an adaptation would have limited appeal outside of North America, and retooled it into a more standard story. However, this forced them to scrap virtually everything they had done up to that point, putting the production well behind schedule. When animation finally did begin, Disney had fallen on financial troubles, forcing them to recycle animation from earlier films, most notably from ''WesternAnimation/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheJungleBook''. Much resentment was also generated among the animators by Reitherman's inflexible attitude, which led him to consistently refuse any suggestions that would have freshened up what they saw as an overly safe, stale take on the source material. On top of all of that, the studio was unhappy with Tommy Steele's performance as the title character, leading to him being replaced by Brian Bedford. The film was a success at the box office (especially in Europe), but was [[CreatorBacklash regarded poorly by many of the animators who worked on it]].
** ''WesternAnimation/TheFoxAndTheHound'' had many troubles during production. Several veteran animators either retired or died early in production, and batches of animation drawings were stolen, leaving several scenes to be redrawn from pencil tests. Many of the studio's new young animators clashed with original director Wolfgang Reitherman's tough style, and while co-director Art Stevens usually sided with the younger animators, even he was adamantly against their insistence that the character of Chief should die in the film (Chief survives with a broken leg). These clashes drove Creator/DonBluth to lead an exodus of practically half the animation team, delaying its release by six months and turning him into Disney's ArchEnemy for a long while. Clashes still occurred between Reitherman, Stevens and Disney CEO Ron Miller when Stevens scrapped a planned song for the film performed by Phil Harris and Charo that Reitherman claimed was needed, believing the film did not have a strong second act. This ultimately led to Reitherman, who had directed nearly all of Disney's animated films since the 1960s and produced them since Creator/WaltDisney's death, to be KickedUpstairs. ''The Fox and the Hound'' would still turn a decent profit, but the after effects of its production would carry over to...
** ''WesternAnimation/TheBlackCauldron''. Original producer Art Stevens was kicked off the project early on (and subsequently left Disney) after his planned version was deemed too lighthearted. In addition, 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, 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, making it 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 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 become one of the biggest box-office bombs in Disney history, not only making back less than half its budget, but nearly ''[[CreatorKiller killing Disney itself]]''. Were it not for Michener and Musker's work on ''The Great Mouse Detective'' turning out to make that film a bigger critical and commercial success than anticipated, Disney Studios would have been sunk. 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 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/OliverAndCompany'' had a troublesome production at first, having its budget drastically reduced as a result of the spectacular failure of ''The Black Cauldron'', then having one of its co-directors, Peter Young, die barely a month into production. Richard Rich was put on the project to replace Young, but busied himself feuding with the new Disney management rather than actually getting anything useful done, and was fired from the company altogether. Things smoothed out once the remaining co-director, George Scribner, was allowed to take over as sole director, but a combination of a middling-at-best critical response, poor overseas performance, and the film being released on the same day as ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'' meant it only barely broke even, and has since received little attention among the wider Disney canon. If nothing else, however, many future Disney and Pixar veterans managed to break into the industry in working on this movie, meaning that it did at least help lead to longer-term success for the company.
** ''WesternAnimation/{{The Little Mermaid|1989}}'': Because of how labor intensive it would have been, Disney sent the animation of the bubbles to a [[Creator/PacificRimAnimation Chinese-based facility]] that just so happened to be located near Tiananmen Square ''just'' as the Beijing student uprising occurred. Everything ultimately went according to plan, but the labor was what convinced the studio to make the full transition to the CAPS digital ink-and-paint process for future films.
** ''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 Jeffrey 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 draw 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 others to Africa for reference, left as he disagreed with 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/{{Pocahontas}}'': According to Susannah Grant, one of the writers, no scene was rewritten "less than thirty five times" until it was perfect. Irene Bedard said she had to record her lines for Pocahontas about five different times over a period of two years. The story was constantly changing and whole characters and plots were dropped.
** ''WesternAnimation/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 [[ProductionLeadTime the deadline came closer]] and Allers and Dindal were basically working on two movies simultaneously (the former on a drama and the latter on 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. All of this was documented in ''Film/TheSweatbox'', a film shot by Sting's wife Trudie Styler, and [[https://www.vulture.com/article/an-oral-history-of-disney-the-emperors-new-groove.html this oral history in 2020]].
** ''WesternAnimation/MeetTheRobinsons'' started under the guidance of Michael Eisner and David Stainton, who were both kicked out and replaced with John Lasseter, who asked for a reworking of about 60% of the film, hence why its release was held back a year.
** ''WesternAnimation/{{Bolt}}'' suffered from this in spades. The film was originally helmed by ''WesternAnimation/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, 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/JohnLasseter and other [[Creator/PixarRegulars Pixar directors]] on how to improve the film), but Sanders reportedly rejected all of the changes. Lasseter then fired Sanders from the project, leading 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''.
** ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'' took six years, a change in directors, a complete overhaul of its 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''. Fortunately for the future of [[WesternAnimation/Frozen2013 other Disney fairy tale adaptations]], it became Disney's biggest hit since ''WesternAnimation/{{The Lion King|1994}}''.
** ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'' went through a number of problems along the way. Originally planned to have been screened before ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'', it had went through a number of cancelled and uncancelled calls along the way before finally getting the go-ahead. Also, 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 [[Franchise/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 depicted as destitute.
** ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}}'' 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''.
*** They spent several years changing the plot over and over. Once production had gotten well underway, they were inspired by Idina Menzel's performance of "Let It Go" (which was written as a VillainSong accompanying a "ThenLetMeBeEvil" epiphany for Elsa, but turned out far more uplifting than they intended, even for what was meant to be a sympathetic TragicVillain) to rewrite Elsa as a hero rather than a villain. Making sweeping changes to the plot to accommodate this new characterization, they were left with less than ''fifteen months'' to finish the film.
*** Due to this change in mid-development, there has been a lot of information and concept art on the "Evil Elsa" plot that's been dumped around compared to most Disney films, including concept art for ''VideoGame/DisneyInfinity'', unused models, ''a lot'' of concept art, and many unused songs.

* '''About every single film''' made by Creator/DonBluth, enough to force him into retirement in 2000.
** ''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 wouldn't make anymore]]. 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 secondhand equipment that was beginning to fall apart. At one point, a malfunctioning moviola 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 finally scrounged together enough for a new one.
** ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfNimh'' was similarly made in Bluth's garage with a budget so small that the last quarter of production was funded by Bluth, Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy mortgaging their houses. The high-quality animation Bluth was aiming for required the animators to work 16 hours a day, sometimes even taking work home with them. After voice recording had finished, the production company was denied permission by the Wham-O toy company to use the name "Mrs. Frisby" from the novel due to them owning the trademark "Frisbee"; this required re-recording of some lines to "Mrs. Brisby", save for John Carradine (as The Great Owl) who was unavailable for another session, requiring those instances to be altered with some clever sound editing. The film was then ultimately given too small of a release to profit on even its meager budget, not helped by the fact that it was competing with ''Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial''. However, it was [[AcclaimedFlop well-reviewed]] enough to become a CultClassic, gaining the attention of [[Creator/StevenSpielberg a certain rival director]] which led to the creation of [[WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail Bluth's more successful second film]].
** Development on ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'' was an utter mess. With so many consultants, writers and directors working onboard, ExecutiveMeddling was inevitable. Upon closer analysis and the weird pacing/transitioning of scenes, one may appreciate the film's story was trying to pull in three directions: the Great Valley being the dinosaur's version of Heaven, which Don Bluth vehemently opposed as it would undermine ''All Dogs Go to Heaven'' (see below), not to mention Steven Spielberg and George Lucas' concerns that the original plot would traumatize children. Don's original vision sees Littlefoot's herd encounter various inequalities and racism from other dinosaurs along their travels. However, this version has Littlefoot (and the viewer) find the Great Valley twice as, to his horror, he realizes the Sharptooth has followed them right there, which Spielberg and Lucas felt diminished the film's climactic score and ending in finding the sanctuary. Despite all this, the film was a success.
** ''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 the 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 otherwise went smoothly, and the film met its intended release date of November 17, 1989...when it was [[DuelingMovies promptly curbstomped]] by ''WesternAnimation/{{The Little Mermaid|1989}}''.
** Then came several films which kicked off Bluth's notorious curse of ExecutiveMeddling. Starting with ''WesternAnimation/RockADoodle'', what few investors Bluth had left forced him to tone down his trademark darkness in favor of a [[LighterAndSofter lighter, more marketable]] and, most importantly, [[FollowTheLeader Disney-esque]] style which completely contradicted his own philosophy of creating films which were dark, but had catharsis. Phil Harris's CaptainObvious narration was forced upon him at the last minute after test audiences, ironically, complained about certain things not making enough sense. It ended up bombing hard enough to close down Bluth's homegrown studio, taking the rights to all of his films with it.
** Pre-production of ''WesternAnimation/{{Thumbelina|1994}}'' was slowed due to seemingly perpetual rewrites that lasted over a year. The original screenwriter had to be fired just to get physical production going, with Bluth writing the script himself and receiving his only solo screen writing credit. In addition, original distributor Creator/MetroGoldwynMayer outright ''refused'' to release the film due to the company's financial stability. After initially attempting to sell the film to Disney (all the more ironic as the film borrows heavily from their Renaissance-era films, seemingly trying to invoke AllAnimationIsDisney; humorously, the film received ''higher'' reviews in test screenings when shown with their logo, and after the film was sold to 20th Century Fox, the film would ultimately ''become'' theirs upon their acquisition of the company in 2019), the film would ultimately go to Warner Bros., where it would flop in the spring of 1994.
** For ''WesternAnimation/ATrollInCentralPark'', Bluth made the mistake of [[WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants shortening production]] in the hopes that it would inspire more spontaneity among his crew. It wound up being his worst-reviewed ''and'' lowest-grossing film after Warner Bros. [[ScrewedByTheNetwork screwed over its release]].
** Late into the production of ''WesternAnimation/ThePebbleAndThePenguin'', Bluth had a falling out with Warner Bros. over the failure of his last two films, control of the project was [[ExecutiveMeddling seized by MGM/United Artists]], and everything went to hell. Animation was farmed out for rushed completion, resulting in OffModel or outright incomplete shots being approved, fully animated scenes were cut, and several voices had to be re-recorded. Bluth was [[CreatorBacklash so furious with how badly the finished film looked]] that he and Gary Goldman outright [[ScrewThisImOutOfHere abandoned ship]], with Bluth [[AlanSmithee taking his director credit with him]], to start up a new animation unit at 20th Century Fox. The first project, ''Westernanimation/{{Anastasia}}'', went well, but then...
** For Bluth's final film, ''WesternAnimation/TitanAE'', Bluth and Goldman were handed an already-floundering project which had already blown through 18 other directors and $30 million on pre-production alone. The two were forced to scrap the whole thing and start over with a $55 million budget and less than two years to deliver. Much of the effects and post-production were done ''two weeks'' before the film's release in June 2000. Just before its premiere, Fox lost faith in the project, foresaw the rising trend of computer animation, and closed down its barely six-year-old 2D animation unit. Bluth temporarily retired from animation shortly thereafter, publicly stating that he would "never draw another character and hand the rights over to someone else".
** And this isn't even taking into account all of his projects that were abruptly canceled during pre-production either from funding being withdrawn or new animation units being shut down.
** Bluth and Goldman have since taken to crowd-funding a prequel film to their 1983 arcade game ''VideoGame/DragonsLair'' in the hopes of making a proper comeback, after years in DevelopmentHell. As of this writing, however, production has been slow.

** The ''Franchise/ToyStory'' films are all well-known for this.
*** [[WesternAnimation/ToyStory1 The first film]] was subject to constant ExecutiveMeddling, with Disney pushing to make it [[DarkerAndEdgier more adult and cynical]]. This being their first feature, Pixar dutifully followed Disney's notes 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 the others had sent. Production was shut down for two weeks while Lasseter and the others basically rewrote the entire film into pretty much what they wanted it to be in the first place. The film would survive and be finished in time for release, although Katzenberg's job did not (he ended up quitting Disney a year before its release to start Creator/DreamWorksAnimation).
*** ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory2'' didn't have it any better. The project had started as a Direct-to-Video sequel handled by a smaller division of Pixar that 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 also 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 refused to budge their stone-set November release date, which was only nine months away (this still being an era where computer animation [[ProductionLeadTime 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. Not only were they able to complete the film, but they also made a film that more than held its own to the first. The meddling of Disney, however, helped kickstart the plan for the studio to operate independently, dividing up their staff into smaller sections in order to avoid burning out their entire crew with each film. Additionally, all the film's progress was 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 animation being deleted before the servers could be unplugged. To make matters worse, the backups Pixar had at the studio were corrupted. It looked like the movie was down the crapper, but it was thankfully saved when it was discovered that staff member Galyn Susman had the entire film and all of its files copied to her desktop computer so she could work on it from home.
*** ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3'' was stuck in DevelopmentHell for years, going through multiple scripts and directors. Also, when Pixar began animating the film, they thought they could save time by using the old character files from ''Toy Story 2''. Unfortunately, they found out they had neglected to keep them updated with their current operating system and thus were inaccessible for use, so they had to remake the characters from scratch.
*** Even within a series notable for production issues, ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory4'' had one of the longest and tumultuous production cycles in Pixar's history, only comparable to ''WesternAnimation/TheGoodDinosaur'' in terms of its production length and changes involved. It was slated to be directed by John Lasseter and Josh Cooley during its first four years of development, but a significant shakeup in production staff was announced in 2017 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. This resulted in the film's release date being pushed forward a year from its original Summer 2017 date. Lasseter 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 Creator/RashidaJones (partially responsible for bringing the misconduct allegations against Lasseter to light) and Will [=MacCormack=] left the film due to CreativeDifferences, resulting in a huge majority of the original screenplay (estimated to be '''80%''', according Bo Peep's voice actress Creator/AnniePotts) being thrown out and rewritten. These changes forced Pixar to delay the film an entire year to properly rewrite the story, swapping release dates with ''WesternAnimation/Incredibles2'' in the process. There was also the fate of Mr. Potato Head, whose voice actor Creator/DonRickles passed away before he could record his lines. Although Pixar considered writing the character out entirely, Rickles' estate told the team they would appreciate Rickles in the film in a speaking capacity as a send-off to his character. Thus, they had to go through decades of unused recordings of Rickles as Potato Head to construct a new performance for him.
** ''WesternAnimation/{{Ratatouille}}'' was originally developed in 2001 by Jan Pinkava, but Pixar lost faith and ultimately replaced him with Creator/BradBird.
** ''WesternAnimation/{{Brave}}'' had title changes, the dismissal of director/co-writer Brenda Chapman, and many scenes being rewritten and/or dropped during production.
** The unique concept of ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut'' meant twice as much time spent on development. Production design alone lasted five years, the longest for designer Ralph Eggelston, and the emotions' distinct "grainy" surface texture was almost dropped because it was too difficult and expensive for just one character, let alone ''five''. Towards the end of production, Pete Docter was seconds away from a nervous breakdown and quitting. But like many troubled Disney/Pixar productions, it was all worth it in the end, as ''Inside Out'' was heralded as Pixar's return to form, and for many, their new gold standard.
** ''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, but a huge lack of interest for another Pixar film, as well as the promotion not being strong enough, led it to become the first full-on BoxOfficeBomb in Pixar's history.

* Over the course of his career, Creator/RalphBakshi has had several films that weren't easy to make, not helped by the fact that his works tend to feature adult themes and imagery, and were made in a time when animation was seen as strictly for children.
** ''WesternAnimation/FritzTheCat'' had a whale of a time getting made, mainly due to Creator/RobertCrumb's hatred for the project, and Bakshi's then-inexperience at directing a feature-length animated movie:
*** It took forever for Bakshi and producer Steve Krantz to find a distributor, due to the film's premise of being a cartoon filled with sex, drugs, political themes, and graphic violence. Warner Bros. had originally funded the film, but backed out after Bakshi refused to cast big-name actors and tone down the sexual content. Even after he did get funding, Bakshi still wasn't safe from ExecutiveMeddling, as Krantz forced him to change the original ending where [[spoiler:Fritz would have '''died''' from the Neo-Nazis' bomb]].
*** Multiple animators were either fired or quit mid-production, either for political reasons (one refused to draw a black crow shooting a pig cop), or vulgar reasons (such as those who only joined to draw sleazy animal pornography). Veteran animator Ted Bonnicksen ended up dying from leukemia during production. When Bakshi relocated his studio to Los Angeles, he was greeted with both praise and hate from various animators, with the latter camp even posting unwelcoming ads about him in ''The Hollywood Reporter''.
** ''WesternAnimation/HeavyTraffic'' marked the last time Bakshi would work with Krantz due to the latter's extreme ExecutiveMeddling and off-the-wall antics. In the middle of production, Bakshi realized that he was never paid for his work on ''Fritz'', with Krantz claiming to him that "the picture didn't make money" ([[BlatantLies even though Krantz had just purchased a new BMW and a mansion in Beverly Hills]] after the box office success of ''Fritz''). Krantz would also issue memos requesting various changes to the movie, such as censoring or removing several sex scenes. When Bakshi refused to talk about his next movie ''Harlem Nights'' with Krantz, the producer locked Bakshi out of the studio, wire-tapped his phone, and fired him from his own movie, calling several directors to replace him, only rehiring him when co-producer Samuel Z. Arkoff threatened to pull funding from the film; all because Krantz was becoming paranoid about Bakshi's loyalty towards him as an employee.
** While ''WesternAnimation/{{Coonskin}}'' had a pretty smooth production (barring an incident where Bakshi had to fire three homophobic animators for picking on a gay artist), its release was another story. The film was incredibly controversial and led to multiple protests (one of which involved smoke bombing a theater showing the movie), often led by both Al Sharpton and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), both of whom [[ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontWatch hadn't even seen the movie]]. As a result, original distributor Creator/{{Paramount}} Pictures dropped the film and handed it over to Bryanston Distributing Company, who ended up going bankrupt two weeks after the film's extremely limited release. Also, some of Music/BarryWhite's lines had to be rerecorded in order to remove "racist references and vulgarity".
** ''WesternAnimation/HeyGoodLookin'' was one of Bakshi's most exhausting productions yet:
*** Wanting to make a film that had [[RogerRabbitEffect a mixture of both live-action and animation]], Bakshi hired various Black animators and graffiti artists to help with the film’s urban aesthetic. Unfortunately, due to the controversy over ''Coonskin'', a lot of them left out of embarrassment.
*** During shooting, Bakshi wasn't satisfied with cinematographer William A. Fraker when filming the live-action segments, so he decided to take the camera and shoot footage himself, which ended up pissing off Fraker so much that he quit and was replaced with a younger cameraman who had never shot a film in his life. Otherwise, shooting went smoothly.
*** During post-production, Bakshi found that the cost of the optical effect required to complete live-action scenes with animated characters was larger than the film's given budget. In order to complete these scenes cost effectively, Bakshi and his cameraman Ted C. Bemiller purchased a 35 mm camera to project the footage onto the glass under the animation camera, which was reflected onto where the animation was shot.
*** With the film being completed in 1975, it was set for a 1976 release before being [[TheShelfOfMovieLanguishment postponed indefinitely]]. While this was due to fears from Creator/WarnerBros that the backlash from ''Coonskin'' would prevent people from seeing the film, it was also because the executives thought that [[ItWillNeverCatchOn a movie combining live-action and animation would be "unreleasable"]], refusing to put more money into the project, with Bakshi spending numerous years taking on [[WesternAnimation/TheLordOfTheRings various]] projects in order to fund the movie himself.
*** Bakshi was almost sued by WB president Frank Wells for having used too much live-action footage, which went against contract. As a result, the majority of the live-action footage was cut, with some scenes instead rotoscoped.
*** The second cut of the film was finally released in 1982 to select markets, where it received mixed critical reception and did little business at the box office. While the film would receive a cult following through cable airings and DVD (one of its fans being Creator/QuentinTarantino), Bakshi himself has [[CreatorBacklash disowned the movie]] (instead having more positive things to say about his original 1975 cut).
** ''WesternAnimation/TheLordOfTheRings'' was one of Bakshi's less problematic productions, but that's not saying much. Bakshi feuded with producer Saul Zaentz throughout production and the initial screenplay had to be heavily rewritten (with the new writer, Peter S. Beagle, doing so for a derisory sum in exchange for guaranteed work on Zaentz's other productions... which he never received). And to top it all off, Bakshi decided to shoot the whole thing in live-action and just rotoscope over it to save time, only to discover that he'd ended up making the scenes far too complex to rotoscope in any reasonable amount of time, forcing him to use a far quicker and cheaper method that resulted in massive {{Art Shift}}s throughout the entire film. Then he was forced to stop the story after adapting the first two books for budgetary reasons. While the finished film was a modest success, Bakshi was denied the greenlight to adapt the rest of the story (not helped by its overall lukewarm reception), resulting in the property being handed back to Creator/RankinBass (who had previously adapted ''Literature/TheHobbit'') to create an adaptation of ''The Return of the King''.

* Famed animator Creator/RichardWilliams had three films during his time in the industry that proved absolute headaches to make.
** ''WesternAnimation/AChristmasCarol1971'': According to one of the special's assistant animators, Tony White, the special fell several months behind schedule by the time he joined its last three months of production. The animators had to pull 7 day workweeks with 14 hours of work per day to pull it off, and the last four days of production were an insane scramble to finish it in time, with the animators putting in an entire ''4 nonstop days and nights, with unpaid''[[note]] however, [[PetTheDog the animators were given a one month holiday break as compensation]][[/note]] ''overtime without sleep''! And even then, Williams was forced to use {{rotoscoping}} for a few scenes just to make it feasible to finish the animation. And the special was finished exactly one hour before it met its deadline! Despite this, it's now regarded as one of the greatest pieces of TV animation and one of the best adaptations of Dickens' story ever done, [[WorthIt even earning a theatrical release and winning an Oscar in the end]].
** ''WesternAnimation/RaggedyAnnAndAndyAMusicalAdventure'' Original director Abe Lewitov died during production, leading to him getting replaced by Richard Williams and a team of Broadway producers who'd never worked on a film, let alone animation, making it difficult for them to know what they wanted. The crew that was eventually assembled consisted mostly of recent art school graduates and veterans of theatrical shorts who'd never worked on a feature, including director Creator/RichardWilliams himself, meaning that everyone was at different levels of experience and ability. Williams, who [[PrimadonnaDirector could not work for a budget]], balked at the initial proposition for [[LimitedAnimation UPA-style animation]], and insisted that, to get the storybook quality visuals he desired, he would need to have two fully operational units on either coast. This ambitious technique, plus the cost to fly Williams back and forth between the two units to supervise and for animators to mail their scenes to the New York studio, caused the once-minuscule budget to skyrocket, slowing down production and resulting in several missed deadlines. It also confused the animators, with one unit sometimes completing a scene the same day it had been assigned to the other unit. Emery Hawkins, who animated [[SignatureScene the infamous "Greedy sequence"]], got fed up and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere quit halfway through]] reanimating the scene for the second time, forcing two assistants to finish it for him. When the studio told Williams that there was no money left to give the film his trademark ArtisticTitle, he cursed them out and animated it himself. Williams was eventually [[ExecutiveMeddling fired and replaced]] at the tail end of production simply to get it finished.
** ''WesternAnimation/TheThiefAndTheCobbler'', as documented in 2012's ''Persistence of Vision'', is one of the most infamous examples of a Troubled Production in animation history:
*** Williams, having illustrated Idries Shah's books about the Middle Eastern folk hero and [[TheTrickster wise fool]] Mullah Nasruddin, set out to adapt the stories into an animated film. Shah and his family sponsored the film, with Shah's brother Omar as producer, and it formally began production in 1964. By 1972, Williams and his studio had produced three hours of footage which needed to be structured into a cohesive movie. However, he soon realized that the Shah family wasn't keeping track of the film's finances and accused Omar of embezzling him. Williams lost the rights to the film in the resulting legal kerfuffle, but was allowed to keep his original character designs, most notably a thief, around whom a new story was written.
*** The new film began production in 1973. Williams hired veteran animators including Art Babbitt and Emery Hawkins for the film. The original ''Nasruddin'' film and its successor had protracted productions due to Williams's incessant perfectionist attitude and constant story revisions that led to dozens of missed deadlines, rewrites and redone animation. Williams took any job he could (including the aforementioned ''Raggedy Ann and Andy'') to fund it. Saudi prince Mohammed bin Faisal Al Saud offered to fund the film, but backed out due to Williams going overbudget and time producing the Thief’s climactic stroll through the One-Eyes’ war machine (which he was still impressed by).
*** The project got moving when 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 budget. By this point, Williams' original animation staff was either dead or had moved on, requiring Williams to hire new talent. He held them to draconian standards and fired many of them at will. The new phase saw Williams incorporate hand-drawn 3D sequences, something he employed in ''Roger Rabbit'', and extended shots that he felt were too good to end early.
*** All of this led him to miss the deadline, and fifteen minutes shy of completion, he 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}} to cash in on Disney's recently released ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}''. The film, finally released in 1993 in South Africa and Australia, was a financial and critical failure. It was re-edited further in its 1995 US release by Miramax, [[{{irony}} then owned by Disney]], who retitled it ''Arabian Knight'', where it also bombed.
*** Williams's [[CreatorKiller career and studio were whisked away by its failure]]. 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.

*** Even within a series notable for production issues, ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory4'' had one of the longest and tumultuous production cycles in Pixar's history, only comparable to ''WesternAnimation/TheGoodDinosaur'' in terms of its production length and changes involved. It was slated to be directed by John Lasseter and Josh Cooley during its first four years of development, but a significant shakeup in production staff was announced in 2017 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. This resulted in the film's release date being pushed forward a year from its original Summer 2017 date. Lasseter 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 Creator/RashidaJones (partially responsible for bringing the misconduct allegations against Lasseter to light) and Will [=MacCormack=] left the film due to CreativeDifferences, resulting in a huge majority of the original screenplay (estimated to be '''80%''', according Bo Peep's voice actress Creator/AnniePotts) being thrown out and rewritten. These changes forced Pixar to delay the film an entire year to properly rewrite the story, swapping release dates with ''WesternAnimation/Incredibles2'' in the process. There was also the fate of Mr. Potato Head, whose voice actor Creator/DonRickles passed away before he could record his lines. Although Pixar considered writing the character out entirely, Rickles' estate told the team they would appreciaye Rickles in the film in a speaking capacity as a send-off to his character. They then had to go through decades of unused recordings of Rickles as Potato Head to construct a new performance for him.

** ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'' went through a number of problems along the way. Originally planned to have been screened before ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'', it had went through a number of cancelled and uncancelled calls along the way before finally getting the go-ahead. Also, 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 depicted as destitute.

** ''WesternAnimation/{{Bolt}}'' suffered from this in spades. The film was originally helmed by ''WesternAnimation/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, 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/JohnLasseter and other [[Creator/PixarRegulars Pixar directors]] on how to improve the film), but Sanders reportedly rejected all of the changes. Lasseter then fired Sanders from the project, leading 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''.

*** [[WesternAnimation/ToyStory1 The first film]] was subject to constant ExecutiveMeddling, with Disney pushing to make it [[DarkerAndEdgier more adult and cynical]]. This being their first feature, Pixar dutifully followed Disney's notes 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 the others had sent. Production was shut down for two weeks while Lasseter and the others basically rewrote the entire film into pretty much what they wanted it to be in the first place. The film would survive and be finished in time for release, although Katzenberg's job did not (he ended up quitting Disney a year before its release to start Creator/{{DreamWorks}}).

* ''WesternAnimation/TheRoadToElDorado'''s director, Will Finn, said that the film's production was an absolute bloodbath and that he still has nightmares about it to this day, as well as grim recollections whenever it's brought up. It was bad enough that he resigned from Creator/{{DreamWorks}} to return to Disney later in its production. He likened the turbulent making of it to being akin to a mashup of ''Film/MutinyOnTheBounty'' and ''Film/TheProducers''.

* Creator/{{Disney}} is notorious for having multiple movies that went through this. Some went on to become their finest works, while others [[OldShame they would much rather forget]]. Moreover, during the reign of Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, it was even ''chronic'':

** ''WesternAnimation/RobinHood1973'' marked the start of a sustained period of troublesome productions that would last until well into the following decade. The story had a long and difficult gestation; originally conceived as a modernized take set in the southern United States, director Wolfgang Reitherman and Disney's executives became concerned that such an adaptation would have limited appeal outside of North America, and retooled it into a more standard story. However, this forced them to scrap virtually everything they had done up to that point, putting the production well behind schedule. When animation finally did begin, Disney had fallen on financial troubles, forcing them to recycle animation from earlier films, most notably from ''WesternAnimation/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheJungleBook''. Much resentment was also generated among the animators by Reitherman's inflexible attitude, which led him to consistently refuse any suggestions that would have freshened up what they saw as an overly safe, stale take on the source material. On top of all of that, the studio was unhappy with Tommy Steele's performance as the title character, leading to him being replaced by Brian Bedford. The film was a success at the box office (especially in Europe), but was regarded by an OldShame by many of the animators who worked on it.

* For the UsefulNotes/{{Ukrain|e}}ian film ''Animation/MavkaTheForestSong'' by studio Animagrad, the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic in 2020-2021 then the [[https://youtu.be/eszfyg2lSbU invasion of the country]] by UsefulNotes/{{Russia}} in 2022 slowed down the film's production. It eventually came out in 2023.

* '''Every single film''' made by Creator/DonBluth, enough to force him into retirement in 2000.

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

** ''WesternAnimation/TheBlackCauldron''. Original producer Art Stevens was kicked off the project early on (and subsequently left Disney) after his planned version was deemed too lighthearted. In addition, original directors Dave Michener and John Musker left to work on ''The Great Mouse Detective'', 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, 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, making it 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 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 become one of the biggest box-office bombs in Disney history, not only making back less than half its budget, but nearly ''[[CreatorKiller killing Disney itself]]''. 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 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/TheSecretOfNimh'' was similarly made in Bluth's garage with a budget so small that the last quarter of production was funded by Bluth, Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy mortgaging their houses. The high-quality animation Bluth was aiming for required the animators to work 16 hours a day, sometimes even taking work home with them. The film was then ultimately given too small of a release to profit on even its meager budget, not helped by the fact that it was competing with ''Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial''. However, it was [[AcclaimedFlop well-reviewed]] enough to become a CultClassic, gaining the attention of [[Creator/StevenSpielberg a certain rival director]] which led to the creation of [[WesternAnimation/AnAmericanTail Bluth's more successful second film]].

* ''WesternAnimation/EscapeFromPlanetEarth'', in the span of six years, stalled in development, went through at least 17 script rewrites, and the Weinsteins reduced the film's budget by keeping over 200 animators on payroll. Writer-director Tony Leech and film producer Brian Inerfeld later sued Creator/TheWeinsteinCompany over this. It ended up being a CreatorKiller for The Weinstein Company's subdivision Kaleidoscope TWC/

* ''WesternAnimation/TheIronGiant'': As described in the documentary ''A Giant's Dream'' and on This Website/ThisVeryWiki: an extremely short turnaround time, a crew consisting mostly of first-time film artists, and an [[Creator/WarnerBros apathetic studio who waited too long to decide whether or not to advertise it]].
* Creator/JoeDante described the production of ''Film/LooneyTunesBackInAction'' as "a nightmarish year and a half of [his] life that [he would] never get back", and an experience he wasn't eager to repeat.
** Dante's biggest headache came from Creator/WarnerBros Feature Animation, which handled animated films at the time. Warner Bros., who, like other studios, was eager to ride the coattails of the 1990s Disney Renaissance, had no conception on how to actually produce animation, and slapped together animation teams without understanding the effort their work took or having any infrastructure in place. The studio rushed films into production before they were properly prepped, truncated their schedules, and engaged in top-heavy micromanagement, leading to high turnover rates and scripts being repeatedly retooled. As a result, of the six animated flicks Warner Bros. Feature Animation put out in its fourteen-year existence, five were [[BoxOfficeBomb Box Office Bombs]].
** When ''Film/SpaceJam'' became the studio's first success (and their only one at the time), Warner Bros. spent years trying to get a follow-up off the ground, floating ideas like having the Looney Tunes star in movies with Creator/JackieChan, [[UsefulNotes/{{NASCAR}} Jeff Gordon]], Tony Hawk, and Tiger Woods. (''Space Jam'' wouldn't get a true sequel until ''[[Film/SpaceJamANewLegacy A New Legacy]]'' twenty-four years later.)
** When Dante joined the production for ''Back in Action'' in the early 2000s, he found himself caught in the middle between Warner Bros. execs who weren't really interested in making the movie and studio marketeers who did, with the two sides not agreeing to what the tone and humor of the film would be. Lacking any basic understanding of how the animation process works, Warner Bros. executives [[ExecutiveMeddling demanded for dialogue to be changed]] even after the animation for that dialogue had been produced. They also believed the movie wasn't funny, which led to 25 gag writers being hired, but only one writer being credited.
** What well and truly killed the movie was once again Warner failing to choose a proper release date for the film, just as it killed each of WBFA's previous projects. Originally set for release in July 2003, it was abruptly moved to November when Warner claimed that ''Finding Nemo'' was hogging the family audience at that time. However, the studio had effectively moved it from the frying pan to the fire, placing it in the middle of a particularly intense competition at the box office, amidst films like ''WesternAnimation/BrotherBear'', ''Film/TheCatInTheHat'', and ''Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheReturnOfTheKing''... ''all'' of which had far more advertising. Not to mention, the initial invasion of Iraq that triggered the Second Gulf War would occur ''that week'', even further distracting the intended audience. With little-to-no promotion and no faith from Warner Bros., the film flopped ''hard'' at the box office, only making a total of $68 million on a budget believed to be around $80 million, directly resulting in the shuttering of Warner Bros. Feature Animation, killing any goodwill Dante still had in Hollywood, and almost singlehandedly ending any popularity the Tunes still had at the time. It wasn't until 2011 that they had [[WesternAnimation/TheLooneyTunesShow a particular revival on]] Creator/CartoonNetwork once more (whereas it was a staple of the net beforehand), but they wouldn't see theater again until ''Space Jam: A New Legacy'' in 2021.
** All that said, the film ''does'' have a following of sorts despite mixed reviews, many fans in particular citing it as a better representation of the characters than ''either'' of the ''Space Jam'' films.

** ''WesternAnimation/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 came closer]] and Allers and Dindal were basically working on two movies simultaneously (the former on a drama and the latter on 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. All of this was documented in ''Film/TheSweatbox'', a film shot by Sting's wife Trudie Styler, and [[https://www.vulture.com/article/an-oral-history-of-disney-the-emperors-new-groove.html this oral history in 2020]].

*** ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory2'' didn't have it any better. The project had started as a Direct-to-Video sequel handled by a smaller division of Pixar that 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 also 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 refused to budge their stone-set November release date, which was 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. Not only were they able to complete the film, but they also made a film that more than held its own to the first. The meddling of Disney, however, helped kickstart the plan for the studio to operate independently, dividing up their staff into smaller sections in order to avoid burning out their entire crew with each film. Additionally, all the film's progress was 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 animation being deleted before the servers could be unplugged. To make matters worse, the backups Pixar had at the studio were corrupted. It looked like the movie was down the crapper, but it was thankfully saved when it was discovered that staff member Galyn Susman had the entire film and all of its files copied to her desktop computer so she could work on it from home.

Animation is not cheap and [[AnimationLeadTime takes long to finish]]. If it's feature length, it can get even worse, as all these animated {{Troubled Production}}s show.

*** Williams, having illustrated Idries Shah's books about the Middle Eastern folk hero and [[TheTrickster wise fool]] Mullah Nasruddin, set out to adapt the stories into an animated film. Shah and his family sponsored the film, with Shah's brother Omar as producer, and it formally began production in 1964. By 1972, Williams and his studio had produced three hours of footage which needed to be structured into a cohesive movie. However, he soon realized that the Shah family wasn't keeping track of the film's finances and accused Omar of embezzling him. Williams lost the rights to the film in the resulting legal kurfuffle, but was allowed to keep his original character designs, most notably a thief, around whom a new story was written.
*** The new film began production in 1973. The original ''Nasruddin'' film and its successor had protracted productions due to Williams's incessant perfectionist attitude and constant story revisions that led to dozens of missed deadlines, rewrites and redone animation. Williams took any job he could (including the aforementioned ''Raggedy Ann and Andy'') to fund it.
*** The project got moving when 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 budget. Unfortunately, Williams' perfectionism led him to miss the deadline, and fifteen minutes shy of completion, he 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}} to cash in on Disney's recently released ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}''. It was re-edited further in its 1995 US release by Miramax, who retitled it ''Arabian Knight''.
*** The film, finally released in 1993, was a financial and critical failure, killing Williams' career and animation studio, and leading 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/RaggedyAnnAndAndyAMusicalAdventure'' was produced by a team of Broadway producers who'd never worked on a film, let alone animation, making it difficult for them to know what they wanted. The crew that was eventually assembled consisted mostly of recent art school graduates and veterans of theatrical shorts who'd never worked on a feature, including director Creator/RichardWilliams himself, meaning that everyone was at different levels of experience and ability. Williams, who [[PrimadonnaDirector could not work for a budget]], balked at the initial proposition for [[LimitedAnimation UPA-style animation]], and insisted that, to get the storybook quality visuals he desired, he would need to have two fully operational units on either coast. This ambitious technique, plus the cost to fly Willaims back and forth between the two units to supervise and for animators to mail their scenes to the New York studio, caused the once-minuscule budget to skyrocket, slowing down production and resulting in several missed deadlines. It also confused the animators, with one unit sometimes completing a scene the same day it had been assigned to the other unit. Emery Hawkins, who animated [[SignatureScene the infamous "Greedy sequence"]], got fed up and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere quit halfway through]] reanimating the scene for the second time, forcing two assistants to finish it for him. When the studio told Williams that there was no money left to give the film his trademark ArtisticTitle, he cursed them out and animated it himself. Williams was eventually [[ExecutiveMeddling fired and replaced]] at the tail end of production simply to get it finished.

** When Dante joined the production for ''Back in Action'' in the early 2000s, he found himself caught in the middle between Warner Bros. execs who weren't really interested in making the movie and studio marketeers who did, with the two sides not agreeing to what the tone and humor of the film would be. Lacking any basic understanding of how the animation process works, Warner Bros. executives [[ExecutiveMeddling demanded for dialogue to be changed]] even after the animation for that dialogue had been produced.
** What well and truly killed the movie was once again Warner failing to choose a proper release date for the film, just as it killed each of WBFA's previous projects. Originally set for release in July 2003, it was abruptly moved to November when Warner claimed that ''Finding Nemo'' was hogging the family audience at that time. However, the studio had effectively moved it from the frying pan to the fire, placing it in the middle of a particularly intense competition at the box office, amidst films like ''WesternAnimation/BrotherBear'', ''Film/TheCatInTheHat'', and ''Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheReturnOfTheKing''... ''all'' of which had far more advertising. Not to mention, the initial invasion of Iraq that triggered the Second Gulf War would occur ''that week'', even further distracting the intended audience. With little-to-no promotion and no faith from Warner Bros., the film flopped ''hard'' at the box office, only making a total of $68 million on a budget believed to be around $80 million, directly resulting in the shuttering of Warner Bros. Feature Animation, killing any goodwill Dante still had in Hollywood, and almost singlehandedly ending any popularity the Tunes still had at the time. It wasn't until 2011 that they had [[WesternAnimation/TheLooneyTunesShow a particular revival on]] Creator/CartoonNetwork once more (whereas it was a staple of the net beforehand), but they wouldn't see ]theater again until ''Space Jam: A New Legacy'' in 2021.

* ''WesternAnimation/JetsonsTheMovie'' had a bad production. Creator/DawsButler (Elroy Jetson) had died before production began, and was hastily replaced by Patric Zimmerman. George O'Hanlon (George Jetson) had to have his lines repeated to him due to his stroke, and could only record for an hour at a time. In addition, both he and Creator/MelBlanc (Mr. Spacely) died during production (George reportedly died of a second stroke '''in the sound booth'''), so Creator/JeffBergman had to finish some of their lines. There was also severe ExecutiveMeddling by Creator/{{Universal}}, such as replacing Creator/JanetWaldo with pop singer Tiffany as the voice of Judy Jetson, and making the film a musical to capitalize on that genre's growing popularity in the late 1980s. All of this led the film to bomb at the box office and [[FranchiseKiller kill off the Jetsons series]].

* ''WesternAnimation/PawsofFuryTheLegendofHank'' (originally titled ''Blazing Samurai''), an animated reimagining of Creator/MelBrooks' ''Film/BlazingSaddles'' set in a WorldOfFunnyAnimals (with Brooks himself onboard), was originally announced in 2015 with a 2017 release date. However, the film's production immediately hit a snag when Arc Productions (who was set to animate the film) went bankrupt. While a new producer was eventually found, little else was heard about the status of the film until November 2019, when it was announced that production was going back on track and that it would have a tentative summer 2021 release date through [[{{Creator/STXEntertainment}} [=STXfilms=]]]...which ''still'' didn't happen, possibly due to STX's financial difficulties at that time. This seemingly eternally kept the film on TheShelfOfMovieLanguishment until it was announced in late January 2022 that [[{{Creator/Paramount}} Paramount Animation]] had bought the film and had immediately set a July 22 release date (the film arguably serving as a slot replacement for Paramount's ''Under the Boardwalk'', which was set to release around that time but was abruptly removed from their release schedule in a concurrent move) and was later set to July 15 under the Creator/NickelodeonMovies banner.

* ''Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank'' (originally titled ''Blazing Samurai''), an animated reimagining of Creator/MelBrooks' ''Film/BlazingSaddles'' set in a WorldOfFunnyAnimals (with Brooks himself onboard), was originally announced in 2015 with a 2017 release date. However, the film's production immediately hit a snag when the original producer went bankrupt. While a new producer was eventually found, little else was heard about the status of the film until November 2019, when it was announced that production was going back on track and that it would have a tentative summer 2021 release date through STX Films...which ''still'' didn't happen. This seemingly eternally kept the film on TheShelfOfMovieLanguishment until it was announced in late January 2022 that Creator/Paramount Animation had bought the film and had immediately set a July 22 release date (the film arguably serving as a slot replacement for Paramount's ''Under the Boardwalk'', which was set to release around that time but was abruptly removed from their release schedule in a concurrent move).

** First off, Creator/SethRogen spent ''eight years'' finding a studio interested in the project. Those that were sent the script rejected it for its religious subject matter and obscene content, and even the film's distributor Creator/ColumbiaPictures rejected it until Rogen sent it to them again a couple of years later. For comparison, Seth had no problem pitching ''Film/TheInterview'' to Columbia in spite of that film's heavy political themes.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheIronGiant'': As described in the documentary ''A Giant's Dream'' and on This Wiki/ThisVeryWiki: an extremely short turnaround time, a crew consisting mostly of first-time film artists, and an [[Creator/WarnerBros apathetic studio who waited too long to decide whether or not to advertise it]].

** ''WesternAnimation/SleepingBeauty'' wasn't as problematic as some of Disney's other productions, but suffered from quite a few conflicts of ego 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. As for the voice cast, in regards to the role of King Stefan, they replaced Hans Conried (who was working on this film when he was responsible for performing live-action reference as King Stefan for animators to capture his expressions and movements for the character) with Taylor Holmes for no apparent reason, making it unknown who voiced Lord Duke and fueling off unanswered questions. This led to the production being prolonged and the budget to balloon massively, and despite being second only to ''[[Film/BenHur1959 Ben-Hur]]'' at the 1959 box office because of its reissues, the film received mixed critical reviews and became the worst financial failure in the Disney animated canon until ''WesternAnimation/TheBlackCauldron'' nearly a quarter-century later, resulting in the animation department being heavily downsized until ''WesternAnimation/TheGreatMouseDetective'' helped save the studio, thanks to it’s critical and financial success. It wasn't until after Walt's death that the film was VindicatedByHistory and Disney would resume making fairy tale films with ''WesternAnimation/{{The Little Mermaid|1989}}'', which kicked off its Renaissance period.

** ''WesternAnimation/TheFoxAndTheHound'' had many troubles during production. Several veteran animators either retired or died early in production, and batches of animation drawings were stolen, leaving several scenes to be redrawn from pencil tests. Many of the studio's new young animators clashed with original director Wolfgang Reitherman's tough style, and while co-director Art Stevens usually sided with the younger animators, even he was adamantly against their insistence that the character of Chief should die in the film (Chief survives with a broken leg). These clashes drove Creator/DonBluth to lead an exodus of practically half the animation team, delaying its release by six months and turning him into Disney's ArchEnemy for a long while. Clashes still occurred between Reitherman, Stevens and Disney CEO Ron Miller when Stevens scrapped a planned song for the film performed by Phil Harris and Charo that Reitherman claimed was needed, believing the film did not have a strong second act. This ultimately led to Reitherman, who had directed nearly all of Disney's animated films since the 1960s and produced them since Creator/WaltDisney's death, to be KickedUpstairs. ''The Fox and the Hound'' would still turn a profit, but the after effects of its production would carry over to...
** ''WesternAnimation/TheBlackCauldron''. Original producer Art Stevens was kicked off the project early on (and subsequently left Disney) after his planned version was deemed too lighthearted. In addition, 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, 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, making it 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 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 become one of the biggest box-office bombs in Disney history, not only making back less than half its budget, but nearly ''[[CreatorKiller killing Disney itself]]''. 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 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.