History TroubledProduction / AnimatedFilms

* 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''. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas' were also concerned 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/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.

* ''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|Animation}} 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''.

* ''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/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 John 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).

*** 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.

* ''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'' ''overtime without sleep''[[note]] however, the animators were given a one month holiday break as compensation[[/note]]! 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]].

** When it was released by Creator/ColumbiaPictures in 1978, critics slammed ''Metamorphoses'' for its confusing RandomEventsPlot and for being pretentious and boring in general. This wasn't helped by at least one screening in Los Angeles where the volume was set so high that, combined with the pop rock score, the soundtrack played loud enough to drive people out of the theater, and even led to rumors that it made the plaster fall off the ceiling.

* 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...

* ''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 were 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]].