Disney/Pixar In General

The Incredibles. But they're already making that.

I remember there used to be a Hercules 2 in production, but it never went anywhere. Instead, we have a cartoon series which is okay, but I think a sequel would be interesting depending on what Greek figures they could fit in.

The novel that Bambi was based on had an official sequel, so if they could, Disney could've adapted that sequel for a real Bambi 2.

Same deal with Alice in Wonderland. Disney could've made an animated Through the Looking Glass, though I heard some elements of Through the Looking Glass made it to the Disney version of Ai W.

Although a sequel I would love to see a third Fantasia film since Disney has had a few attempts in the past. I heard they wanted to do a world tour theme, which could work if they could emulate paintings from around the world.

Walt actually planned to adapt Bambi's Children at some point, but it never made it past concept stages (an old Disney comic adaptation was made though). I'm tempted to think Disneytoons turned down the story because they'd already used the "first film's kids as protagonist" sequel formula endless times before, though I will say I did like Bambi II.

Yeah Fantasia does seem the one they have most authorisation to do, since even Walt wanted to make countless sequels of it. Granted Fantasia 2000 was very divisive. You could practically make a third Fantasia with all the discarded segments from either two that made it into different projects. (Oh and Goofy number if the third film is made).

I am interested in how Dumbo 2 would have turned out. It did seem like one the team were genuinely passionate about, especially considering the Development Hell it had before being cancelled altogether.

edited 13th Jul '17 11:56:33 AM by Psi001

I thought Bambi II was decent, as well, and like a bunch of other people, I thought that Cinderella III was really pretty good.

If I had to choose my personal worst Disney DTV sequels, I'd say either Mulan II (which has a lot of story issues and ruins one of my favorite Disney characters) or The Fox and The Hound II (which I find really unmemorable and a little too much on the sugary sweet side for my tastes).

Yeah, that you mention it, it would be pretty interesting to see how a Dumbo sequel would have panned out. Was there even a set plot for it before it got canned?

edited 13th Jul '17 11:59:27 AM by kablammin45

I can't help but feel that Fox and the Hound 2's premise and new characters would have worked better in a different franchise or even standalone. The whole mocking 'what singing dogs sound like to humans' would have been far more relevant in say Oliver And Company or Lady And The Tramp, especially since they were comparatively more light hearted films. Dixie and Cash did feel wasted in that movie, especially with the talent they got to voice them.

Actually I'd have loved to see an Oliver And Company sequel, especially since half the cast hadn't passed away when Disneytoons were still making sequels. I wanna hear Bette Midler as Georgette just once more.

Concerning Dumbo 2 the making of teaser had something about Dumbo getting stranded with a bunch of other performing baby animals and trying to find their way back to the circus.

edited 13th Jul '17 12:07:01 PM by Psi001

9452: The Disney Alice put in Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Walrus and the Carpenter, and "Jabberwocky," all of which were in the sequel, though it is mostly the first book. (They wanted to include a Stan Freberg-voiced Jabberwock and Humpty Dumpty, who they nixed because he was too talkative a character.)

However - the English Mickey Mouse comic published a serialized take on Through the Looking Glass in 1952, which would probably give some idea of what a Disney film version of the book would look like: http://vintagedisneyalice.blogspot.com/2012/05/mickey-mouse-weekly-610-from-england.html

(This is the first page but this blog has every page.)

Heck, I feel like Disney could've made standalone direct to video movies with the same animation quality as Mulan 2, Fox in the Hound 2 or Cinderella 3. Make movies that have small stakes and a small budget, but with less risk of diminishing other theatrical stories or from being a bomb. Give other animators and creators some experimental movies, before they go into the big leagues. Disney made original live action movies for the Disney Channel, why didn't they do the same for animation? (Not counting the ones based on their TV cartoons) But if I had to guess, Disney doesn't want to support indie projects, and they had that quota that it's better to cash in on popular things.

They did do a few like that, though most of them were Mickey Mouse or other classic short character related. Personally I thought that Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers was pretty good.

Disney often does finance smaller animation projects and also does animation exercises for their younger animators. Lately those have been mostly shorts (which are also used to test out new technologies...if you pay attention you will note that there is often a short testing out some elements which will later turn up in one of the movies), but in the past there were small features often but not always Mickey mouse related. There is for example also the story about the donkey which later carries Maria.

Some of the movies which were made as a side project or were financed by Disney are The brave little Toaster, Nightmare before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and Gnomeo and Juliet. And the toon studios did their share of animated movies, too, mostly related to their series. The Goofy movies, the Tinkerbell movies aso.

edited 14th Jul '17 5:01:35 AM by Swanpride

So apparently the D23 Expo 2017 is starting today.

Anyone keeping tabs on what's happening there?

I've heard that they're releasing more details about the Star Wars lands they're building in the parks, but that's all I know.

Cool, but I kinda meant if there was anyone live-streaming anything going on at the Expo or some other way to find out what they're announcing without actually being there.

i feel a bit sadden honestly. most of anything that isn't disney is usually crap to most people whereas disney has been making mostly alright to great movies as of late. is it a good thing? yes but sometimes it's refreshing to see a non disney movie that's god and doesn't rely on pop culture references that intellectuals oh so hate.

Because animated movies are expensive, and fit less so into a television network budget.

edited 14th Jul '17 8:08:02 AM by kyun

Not to mention that Disney, despite the fact its TV cartoons are miles better than their live-action TV, doesn't really seem to care for them.

Remember when the only cartoon Disney was producing was Phineas And Ferb? And remember how Gravity Falls and Wander Over Yonder were pretty much moved to Disney XD?

If things have improved on that front lately, I'll be surprised.

edited 14th Jul '17 8:10:17 AM by Aldo930

I say Disney XD is where you can find all of their cartoons these days. I have to say Disney XD has been Rescued from the Scrappy Heap over the years since it debut to replace Toon Disney, which I still kind of miss. On the other hand, it's really become the spiritual successor to Toon Disney and has toned down it's Totally Radical elements.

edited 14th Jul '17 8:20:28 AM by firewriter

Concerning the DTV sequels, I think they would have been better received if they had been advertised for what they were; side projects. Lower budget companion pieces to bigger films. Let's face it, there is appeal for kids to see their favourite film characters again and potential stories can be made, but slapping a big 2 or 3 onto some cheap animation insinuates it's going to be on the same level as the original masterpiece.

Hell they even slapped a numeral title onto a couple of TV show pilots, which is just plain disrespectful to the work of the original films. I mean, some like Bambi II did try to be cimena-effort, but it still would have been logical and scrupulous to use it's Working Title Bambi and the Great Prince. The change to 2 makes it obvious they were trying to sell it to more gullible customers as being as grand scale as the first film.

edited 14th Jul '17 8:32:16 AM by Psi001

To be fair, Toon Disney had pretty much been overtaken by Jetix in its last few years and wasn't doing too well in anything except the reruns.

But I still think the cartoons ought to be on the Disney Channel proper, not on a channel in the high hundreds that a lot of people still can't get.

I think the Cheapquels were a mistake from the get go. The only ones which worked were the Aladdin ones (somewhat) and that was because they were more related to the TV show than the actual movie. It is not even the awful animation or anything like that, but most of those movies ended on a note that you don't want to know more and the cheapquels were lazily written and didn't capture at all why the original is beloved it the first place. They should have focussed on TV movies based on their cartoon stuff...I would have certainly bought a gargoyles movie. Hell, I DID by the Recess movie and don't rue it for a second, the series was fun and the movie does capture the fun part in it pretty well.

Actually that was Disneytoons Studios' purpose originally, but since Duck Tales The Movie did poor in box office, they cancelled the idea. Shame I would have loved a Tale Spin movie.

edited 14th Jul '17 9:00:15 AM by Psi001

Well, yes, but that is the point of direct to video products, box office doesn't matter.

About half of the cheapquels were actually pilot episodes of TV series'. I realized this when watching Doug Walker's Disneycember month.

In my opinion, a Jungle Book sequel could have worked if they had thought of to use deleted concepts from the first movie like Buldeo as the main antagonist instead of going for an uninspired plot or other elements from the book as well.

http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Buldeo

The biggest problem was with the sequels is how uninspired they were, and how they liked to take the cliche and predictable route. In my opinion, given how Disney deletes a lot of concepts a lot of them could have been refitted for the sequels and they could have gone from there.

Doug's Disneycember was hilarious (he broke his microphone watching Mulan 2). He did have some surprisingly outstanding cases though, he really liked Tarzan 2 and Patch's London Adventure, even more than the original films (even if he admitted that's not the same as them being better than the original films).

There were some they bothering doing the research or having a clever twist with (eg. The Lion King sequels based on more Shakespeare plays like the first one was, Bambi II adapting a couple elements from the original books and even some Disney merchandise) but yeah, the same formula did keep appearing over and over, like the protagonist having a child and becoming an overprotective parent, or the original villains' sibling taking over their role. They were definitely trying to play more on the publicity of the first rather than making something good in it's own right most of the time.

The Jungle Book 2 definitely did feel like the most pointless, which is a shame because it was arguably one that had tons of different directions to take, what with the original novels, and even Talespin and Jungle Cubs as source material. Hell they mentioned development ideas for sequels other than the Disneytoons one, most of them sounded far more original.

In fairness, this was a time even Disney's mainstream stuff was starting to become stale. I know more people willing to watch Bambi II and Cinderella III than Home on the Range and Chicken Little. The company was obviously running low on ideas.

edited 14th Jul '17 10:10:11 AM by Psi001

The Mulan 2 Disneycember video is the legendary gem among that whole month! :D