(Note: The Buzz Cut's Disney's Urban Legends series still has two remaining parts. Consider this a slight detour before the series continues to its end.)
As reported in the Buzz-Wire earlier today, Disney's new chief of animation, Michael Stainton said Disney's films will once again start catering to its core demographic: children 4 to 10 years old and their parents. What does this mean for you and me? Will we soon witness the dumbing down of Disney?
Stainton told the L.A. Times that Treasure Planet's dismal box-office return ($38 million domestically for a feature that costed $140 million to make) was due to confusion over who the movie was directed toward. "If you think you're making a movie for everybody, you're making a movie for nobody," he said.
But is that really true? Perhaps Stainton's previous position with Disney Television—where the key audience is indeed the rugrats—has clouded his thinking. DreamWorks' Shrek grossed a whopping $267.6 million at the box office and Fox's Ice Age pulled in an impressive $176.3 million. Granted, the fact that CG seems to be all the rage these days helped the movies along, but anyone who saw them can attest to there being enough jokes in there to keep the older crowd entertained.
That's also the genius of Rugrats and The Simpsons. Kids dig these two series for their straightforward humor, but underneath, there are jokes that only teenagers and adults will catch.
Jim Hill—an "insider" who writes about Disney—addressed this topic on his website recently, and he noted that some Disney Animation vets he's spoken to are a bit wary of Stainton's intentions. Here's a direct quote from one such veteran: "David's trying to dumb down what Disney does. Radically change how Disney Feature Animation operates so that it's more like Disney Television Animation. So that we can quickly churn out all of these low budget projects—stuff that's on par with Return to Neverland and Jungle Book 2—that are sure to turn a profit even if audiences and critics don't exactly embrace them."
Is that what Stainton is aiming for? Improve the bottom line by releasing more cookie cutter 'cheapquels' and movies with lame-brained stories? With DreamWorks quickly earning cred as a top animation studio, Disney can ill afford to tarnish its reputation as the best in the business.
