179-630: The Disney Renaissance was a period from 1989 to 1999 during which Walt Disney Feature Animation returned to producing critically and commercially successful animated films . The ten feature films associated with this period are The Little Mermaid (1989), The Rescuers Down Under (1990), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), Mulan (1998), and Tarzan (1999). The films were mostly musical adaptations of well known stories, similar to
358-475: A 2011 documentary about bullying, and Philomena —which has two instances of the word—released in 2013, were originally given R ratings on grounds of the language but the ratings were dropped to PG-13 after successful appeals (albeit Bully needed some cuts). The King's Speech , however, was given an R rating for one scene using the word fuck several times in a speech therapy context; the MPAA refused to recertify
537-528: A PG-13 rating. More than one occurrence will usually incur an R rating as will the usage of such an expletive in a sexual context. Known as the "automatic language rule", the rule has been applied differently depending on the subject matter of the film. For example, All the President's Men (1976) received a PG rating after appealing it from an R, despite multiple instances of strong language, likely because of its historic subject matter. The automatic language rule
716-668: A PG-13 rating. Nudity that is sexually oriented will generally require an R rating. Since 2006, films have been flagged by the MPAA for carrying nudity. In 2010, the MPAA flagged three films specifically for " male nudity ", precipitated by parental pressure in response to Brüno . In 2018, MPAA Ratings Chair Joan Graves clarified the MPA's position by stating that "we don't usually define [nudity] as male or female ... usually, we just mention partial nudity, [or] graphic nudity." The MPAA does not have any explicit criteria for sexual content other than excluding sex scenes from G-rated films. Prior to
895-519: A full-length compilation feature, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh , which was released in 1977. Walt Disney died in December 1966, ten months before the studio's next film The Jungle Book , was completed and released. The film was a success, finishing 1967 as the fourth highest-grossing film of the year. Following Walt Disney's death, Wolfgang Reitherman continued as both producer and director of
1074-632: A groundbreaking live-action/animation hybrid directed by Robert Zemeckis , which featured licensed animated characters from other studios (such as Warner Bros., MGM, and Universal). Disney set up a new animation studio under Williams' supervision in London to create the cartoon characters for Roger Rabbit , with many of the artists from the California studio traveling to England to work on the film. A significant critical and commercial success, Roger Rabbit won three Academy Awards for technical achievements. and
1253-469: A live-action remake "done well" that "improves on the original" and had no doubt that "it will become an indelible part of many a young person's childhood, and I can't wait to watch it with my daughter." Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post called it an "on-the-other-fin mixed bag of a movie that honors its source material with a big, color-saturated production, while never precisely proving that it ever needed to exist." A live-action adaptation of Hercules
1432-399: A long-time animation fan—to produce Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), a live-action/animation hybrid that featured animated characters of the 1930s and 1940s from many different studios together. The film was a critical and commercial success, winning three Academy Awards as well as a Special Achievement Academy Award , and renewing interest in theatrical animated cartoons. In addition to
1611-601: A look I had never seen before." Authorities in Washington invoked a municipal ordinance that would have prevented any minors from seeing the film, threatening theater owners with arrest if they did. Meacham insinuated that the board had succumbed to pressure from Warner Brothers, which had spent $ 10 million, more than twice its original budget, making the film; an X rating would have seriously limited The Exorcist ' s commercial prospects. New Yorker critic Pauline Kael echoed his criticism. "If The Exorcist had cost under
1790-451: A lower advance payment for each Oswald short. Disney refused and, as Universal owned the rights to Oswald rather than Disney, Mintz set up his own animation studio to produce Oswald cartoons. Most of Disney's staff was hired away by Mintz to move over once Disney's Oswald contract expired in mid-1928. Working in secret while the rest of the staff finished the remaining Oswalds on contract, Disney and his head animator Ub Iwerks led
1969-532: A lukewarm response at the box office and was a sharp critical disappointment in its initial release. Peter Pan , released in 1953, on the other hand, was a commercial success and the sixth highest-grossing film of the year . In 1955, Lady and the Tramp was released to higher box office success than any other Disney animated feature since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , earning an estimated $ 6.5 million in rentals at
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#17328455233012148-538: A million or been made abroad," she wrote, "it would almost certainly be an X film. But when a movie is as expensive as this one, the [board] doesn't dare give it an X." In 1974, Richard Heffner took over as president of the board. During his interview process, he had asked to screen recent films that had sparked ratings controversies, including The Exorcist . "How could anything be worse than this?" he recalled thinking later. "And it got an R?" After he took over as head, he would spearhead efforts to be more aggressive with
2327-406: A modern pop soundtrack. Oliver & Company opened in the theaters on the same day as another Bluth/Amblin/Universal animated film, The Land Before Time ; however, Oliver & Company outgrossed The Land Before Time in the U.S. and went on to become the most successful animated feature in the U.S. to that date, though the latter's worldwide box office gross was higher than the former. At
2506-412: A more Broadway feel to it. Lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken , who worked on Broadway years earlier on Little Shop of Horrors alongside now-Walt Disney Feature Animation president Peter Schneider (who served as company manager on the stage musical), became involved in the production, writing and composing the songs and score for the film. Ashman worked to have the songs stitched into
2685-609: A new distribution contract with Columbia Pictures . Powers, in return, signed away Ub Iwerks, who began producing cartoons at his own studio, although he would return to Disney in 1940. Columbia distributed Disney's shorts for two years before the Disney studio entered a new distribution deal with United Artists in 1932. The same year, Disney signed a two-year exclusive deal with Technicolor to utilize its new 3-strip color film process , which allowed for fuller-color reproduction where previous color film processors could not. The result
2864-690: A news article: "I think it distorts and ruptures the intent of this voluntary film ratings system. All R-rated films are not alike." John Fithian, the president of the National Association of Theatre Owners, also said that the cards can be harmful. He noted in a news article for the Christian Science Monitor that the R rating is "broad enough to include relatively family-friendly fare such as Billy Elliot and Erin Brockovich (which were both rated R for language) along with films that push
3043-519: A rape, some strong sexual content, nudity and language." By the early 2000s, the MPAA began applying rating explanations for PG, PG-13, and NC-17-rated films as well. Depictions of violence are permitted under all ratings but must be moderated for the lower ones. Violence must be kept to a minimum in G-rated films and must not be intense in PG-rated films. Depictions of intense violence are permitted under
3222-580: A regular basis, with many of the shorts divisions' personnel either leaving the company or being reassigned to work on Disney television programs such as The Mickey Mouse Club and Disneyland . While the Silly Symphonies shorts had dominated the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons) during the 1930s, its reign over the most awards had been ended by MGM 's Tom and Jerry cartoons, Warner Bros' Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies , and
3401-568: A return to form, referring to this era in Disney history as the Disney Revival or even the new Disney Renaissance. Most films in the Revival use CGI animation to tell stories set in fantastical settings incorporating the Renaissance's Broadway musical style. Several crew members from the Renaissance returned to help create Revival films. Ron Clements and John Musker returned to direct The Princess and
3580-563: A separate "story department" with storyboard artists dedicated to story development. With well-developed characters and an interesting story, the 1933 Technicolor Silly Symphony cartoon Three Little Pigs became a major box office and pop culture success, with its theme song " Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? " becoming a popular chart hit. In 1934, Walt Disney gathered several key staff members and announced his plans to make his first animated feature film. Despite derision from most of
3759-555: A series of silent Alice Comedies short films featuring a live-action child actress in an animated world. The Alice Comedies were distributed by Margaret J. Winkler 's Winkler Pictures , which later also distributed a second Disney short subject series, the all-animated Oswald the Lucky Rabbit , through Universal Pictures starting in 1927. Upon relocating to California, the Disney brothers initially started working in their uncle Robert Disney's garage at 4406 Kingswell Avenue in
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#17328455233013938-487: A small handful of loyal staffers in producing cartoons starring a new character named Mickey Mouse . The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho , were previewed in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon, however, Disney produced a soundtrack, collaborating with musician Carl Stalling and businessman Pat Powers , who provided Disney with his bootlegged "Cinephone" sound-on-film process. Subsequently,
4117-416: A stopgap measure. To accommodate "the irresistible force of creators determined to make 'their films' " , and to avoid "the possible intrusion of government into the movie arena", he developed a set of advisory ratings which could be applied after a film was completed. On November 1, 1968, the voluntary MPAA film rating system took effect, with three organizations serving as its monitoring and guiding groups:
4296-526: A total of five nominations. The Lion King earned two additional Academy Award nominations for Best Original Song, giving it a total of four Academy Award nominations. Between the two in-house productions, Disney diversified in animation methods and produced the stop-motion animated film The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) with former Disney animator Tim Burton , which was directed by also former Disney animator Henry Selick . That film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects becoming
4475-619: Is Bad Education (2004), an NC-17 foreign-language film that grossed $ 5.2 million in the United States theatrically (a moderate success for a foreign-language film ). In 2000, the Directors Guild of America called the NC-17 rating an "abject failure", for causing filmmakers to re-edit films to receive an R rating, rather than accept an NC-17 rating. They argued that this was "not only compromising filmmakers' visions, but also greatly increasing
4654-472: Is administered by the Classification & Ratings Administration (CARA), an independent division of the MPA. The MPA film ratings are as follows: In 2013, the MPA ratings were visually redesigned, with the rating displayed on a left panel and the name of the rating shown above it. A larger panel on the right provides a more detailed description of the film's content and an explanation of the rating level
4833-480: Is among Disney's most notable assets, with the stars of its animated shorts— Mickey Mouse , Minnie Mouse , Donald Duck , Daisy Duck , Goofy , and Pluto —becoming recognizable figures in popular culture and mascots for the Walt Disney Company as a whole. Three of the studio's films— Frozen (2013), Zootopia (2016), and Frozen II (2019)—are all among the 50 highest-grossing films of all time , with
5012-405: Is an American animation studio that creates animated features and short films for The Walt Disney Company . The studio's current production logo features a scene from its first synchronized sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie (1928). Founded on October 16, 1923, by brothers Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney after the closure of Laugh-O-Gram Studio , it is the longest-running animation studio in
5191-480: Is arguably the rule that can most often be successfully appealed. The ratings board may award a PG-13 rating passed by a two-thirds majority if they believe the language is justified by the context or by the manner in which the words are used. It is sometimes claimed that films rated PG-13 are only able to use the expletive fuck once to avoid an R rating for language. There are several exceptional cases in which PG-13-rated films contain multiple occurrences of
5370-557: Is currently in development with Guy Ritchie to direct it. With the exception of The Rescuers Down Under , the rest of the movies had video game releases during the 1990s: The Little Mermaid (1991), Aladdin (1993), Beauty and the Beast (1994), The Lion King (1994), Pocahontas (1996), The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Topsy Turvy Games (1996), Hercules (1997), Mulan (1998) and Tarzan (1999). Walt Disney Animation Studios Walt Disney Animation Studios ( WDAS ), sometimes shortened to Disney Animation ,
5549-559: Is echoed by other critics, including David Ansen , as well as many filmmakers. Moreover, Ebert argued that the rating system is geared toward looking at trivial aspects of the film (such as the number of times a profane word is used) rather than at the general theme of the film (for example, if the film realistically depicts the consequences of sex and violence). He called for an A (adults only) rating, to indicate films high in violence or mature content that should not be marketed to teenagers, but do not have NC-17 levels of sex. He also called for
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5728-487: Is included in the line-up of films if either Dinosaur or The Emperor's New Groove is seen as the end of the era. Brandon Zachery of Comic Book Resources states that Tarzan is widely considered to be the finale of the Renaissance as it was the final film in a row of Disney's that, "still adhered to many of the era's standard traits, including multiple songs, cutting-edge visuals and celebrity cameos in small roles." Disney MovieToons , later known as Disneytoon Studios,
5907-416: Is placed on a horizontal bar at the bottom of the rating. Film ratings often have accompanying brief descriptions of the specifics behind the film's content and why it received a certain rating. They are displayed in trailers, posters, and on the backside of home video releases. Film rating content descriptors are exclusively used for films rated from PG to NC-17; they are not used for G-rated films because
6086-416: Is restricted to PG-13 and above. An example of an otherwise PG film being assigned a PG-13 rating for a drug reference (momentary, along with brief language) is Whale Rider . The film contained only mild profanity, but was rated PG-13 because of a scene where drug paraphernalia were briefly visible. Critic Roger Ebert criticized the MPAA for the rating and called it "a wild overreaction". In May 2007,
6265-455: Is the reason why many believe other studios began to cast celebrities as voice actors in their animated films. Due to Disney never acknowledging an official timeline of films for their Renaissance, it is debated what film should be considered the end of the era. Some consider Dinosaur (2000) for its use of CGI or The Emperor's New Groove (2000) for its comedic tone to be the end of the Renaissance. Given its release in 1999, Fantasia 2000
6444-577: The Disneyland theme park, production of the animated films was left primarily in the hands of the "Nine Old Men" trust of head animators and directors. This led to several delays in approvals during the production of Sleeping Beauty , which was finally released in 1959. At $ 6 million, it was Disney's most expensive film to date, produced in a heavily stylised art style devised by artist Eyvind Earle and presented in large-format Super Technirama 70 with six-track stereophonic sound. However, despite being
6623-718: The Donald Duck cartoons eclipsed the Mickey Mouse series in popularity. Silly Symphonies , which garnered seven Academy Awards , ceased in 1939, until the shorts returned to theatres with some re-issues and re-releases. The success of Snow White allowed Disney to build a new, larger studio on Buena Vista Street in Burbank, where The Walt Disney Company remains headquartered to this day. Walt Disney Productions had its initial public offering on April 2, 1940, with Walt Disney as president and Roy Disney as CEO. The studio launched into
6802-536: The Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, then, in October 1923, formally launched their studio in a small office on the rear side of a real estate agency's office at 4651 Kingswell Avenue. In February 1924, the studio moved next door to office space of its own at 4649 Kingswell Avenue. In 1925, Disney put down a deposit on a new location at 2719 Hyperion Avenue in the nearby Silver Lake neighborhood , which came to be known as
6981-496: The X rating , and was distributed by their Claridge Pictures subsidiary. Two other films were rated X by the time the MPAA published their first weekly bulletin listing ratings: Paramount 's Sin With a Stranger and Universal 's Birds in Peru . Both films were subsequently released by subsidiaries. The ratings used from 1968 to 1970 were: This content classification system originally
7160-428: The attack on Pearl Harbor , the studio housed over 500 U.S. Army soldiers who were responsible for protecting nearby aircraft factories from enemy bombers. In addition, several Disney animators were drafted to fight in the war and the studio was contracted on producing wartime content for every branch of the U.S. military , particularly military training, and civilian propaganda films. From 1942 to 1943, 95 percent of
7339-426: The highest-grossing musical film of all time , the highest-grossing remake of all time, the highest-grossing Walt Disney Pictures film of all time, the second-highest-grossing film of 2019 , and the seventh highest-grossing film of all time . The film received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for its visual effects, music, and vocal performances, but criticism for its lack of originality, and facial emotion on
Disney Renaissance - Misplaced Pages Continue
7518-623: The ninth-highest-grossing film of 2019 . The film received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for its music, costume design, and the performances of actors, but criticism for Ritchie's direction and the screenplay. The third live-action Disney Renaissance remake became CGI remake The Lion King (directed and produced by Jon Favreau ). It was theatrically released in the United States on July 19, 2019. Hans Zimmer returned as composer, and Elton John and Tim Rice returned to write new songs with Beyoncé . It grossed over $ 1.6 billion worldwide, becoming highest-grossing animated film of all time ,
7697-461: The tenth-highest-grossing film of all time . Beauty and the Beast received positive reviews from critics, with many praising its faithfulness to the original animated film, the elements used from the Broadway musical, performances, visual style, musical score, songs, costume design, and production values, though criticism was drawn toward its character designs, the auto-tuning of the singing voices, and
7876-581: The third highest-grossing film of the year and the most successful and best reviewed Disney animated film since The Jungle Book . The film was reissued in 1983, accompanied by a new Disney featurette, Mickey's Christmas Carol . The production of The Rescuers signaled the beginning of a changing of the guard process in the personnel at the Disney animation studio, as veterans such as Milt Kahl and Les Clark retired; they were gradually replaced by new talents such as Don Bluth , Ron Clements , John Musker and Glen Keane . The new animators, selected from
8055-602: The "Hays Code" by invoking the First Amendment . Valenti cited examples such as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , which used prohibited language including "hump the hostess", and Blowup , which was denied Code approval due to nudity, resulting in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , then a member studio of the MPAA, releasing it through a subsidiary. Valenti revised the Code to include the "SMA" (Suggested for Mature Audiences) advisory as
8234-445: The "X" rating (or any other symbol or description that was not an MPAA trademark). In 1970, the ages for "R" and "X" were raised from 16 to 17. Also, due to confusion over whether "M"-rated films were suitable for children, "M" was renamed to "GP" (for General audiences, Parental guidance suggested), and in 1971, the MPAA added the content advisory "Some material not generally suitable for pre-teenagers". On February 11, 1972, "GP"
8413-521: The 1950s. Following its success, production on the in-limbo features Alice in Wonderland , Peter Pan , and Lady and the Tramp was resumed. In addition, an ambitious new project, an adaptation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale " Sleeping Beauty " set to Tchaikovsky 's classic score, was begun but took much of the rest of the decade to complete. Alice in Wonderland , released in 1951, met with
8592-529: The 1959 layoffs and competition for Walt Disney's attention from the company's expanded live-action film, TV and theme park departments, production continued on feature animation productions at a reduced level. In 1961, the studio released One Hundred and One Dalmatians , an animated feature that popularized the use of xerography during the process of inking and painting traditional animation cels . Using xerography, animation drawings could be photochemically transferred rather than traced from paper drawings to
8771-556: The 1970s to the present. The Sword in the Stone was released in 1963 and was the sixth highest-grossing film of the year in North America with estimated rentals of $ 4.75 million. A featurette adaptation of one of A. A. Milne 's Winnie-the-Pooh stories, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree , was released in 1966, to be followed by several other Pooh featurettes over the years and
8950-551: The Disney studio. A bitter union strike began in May 1941 , which was resolved without the angered Walt Disney's involvement in July and August of that year. As Walt Disney Productions was being set up as a union shop, Walt Disney and several studio employees were sent by the U.S. government on a Good Neighbor policy trip to Central and South America. The Disney strike and its aftermath led to an exodus of several animation professionals from
9129-587: The Frog (2009) and Moana (2016). Alan Menken scored Tangled (2010) and was a composer for songs for Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018). The Disney Revival is the most profitable era in Disney animation history. Frozen , for instance, grossed over 1.2 billion worldwide. The film held the title of highest-grossing animated film, fifth-highest-grossing film of all time, and second Walt Disney Studios highest-grossing film (behind The Avengers ) in 2013. Frozen also
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#17328455233019308-473: The Hound (1981), when long-time animator Don Bluth left Disney's animation department to start his own rival studio, Don Bluth Productions , taking eleven Disney animators with him. With 17% of the animators now gone, production on The Fox and the Hound was delayed by six months. Don Bluth Productions produced The Secret of NIMH (1982), whose story had originally been rejected by Disney for being too dark, and
9487-513: The Hyperion Studio to distinguish it from the studio's other locations, and, in January 1926, the studio moved there and took on the name Walt Disney Studio . Meanwhile, after the first year's worth of Oswalds , Walt Disney attempted to renew his contract with Winkler Pictures, but Charles Mintz , who had taken over Margaret Winkler's business after marrying her, wanted to force Disney to accept
9666-461: The London satellite office and retool the film into a musical-comedy format similar to The Little Mermaid . Alan Menken and Howard Ashman were retained to write the songs and score, though Ashman died before production was completed. PG-Rating The Motion Picture Association film rating system is used in the United States and its territories to rate a motion picture 's suitability for certain audiences based on its content. The system and
9845-689: The MPA may also submit films for rating. Other media, such as television programs , music and video games , are rated by other entities such as the TV Parental Guidelines , the RIAA and the ESRB , respectively. In effect as of November 1968, following the Hays Code of the classical Hollywood cinema era, the MPA rating system is one of various motion picture rating systems that are used to help parents decide what films are appropriate for their children . It
10024-406: The MPAA announced that depictions of cigarette smoking would be considered in a film's rating. Anti-smoking advocates stated that the child-friendly PG rating was inappropriate for the 2011 Nickelodeon -animated film Rango , which included over 60 depictions of characters smoking. Nudity is restricted to PG and above, and anything that constitutes more than brief nudity will require at least
10203-608: The MPAA controversially decided to give the film Blue Valentine an NC-17 rating. The Weinstein Company challenged this decision, and the MPAA ended up awarding the same cut an R rating on appeal. Actor Ryan Gosling , who stars in the film, noted that NC-17 films are not allowed wide advertisement and that, given the refusal of major cinema chains like AMC and Regal to show NC-17 rated movies, many such films will never be accessible to people who live in markets that do not have art house theatres. Legal scholar Julie Hilden wrote that
10382-882: The MPAA has a "masterpiece exception" that it has made for films that would ordinarily earn an NC-17 rating, if not for the broader artistic masterpiece that requires the violence depicted as a part of its message. She cites Saving Private Ryan , with its bloody depiction of the D-Day landings , as an example. This exception is troubling, Hilden argues, because it ignores context and perspective in evaluating other films and favors conventional films over edgier films that contribute newer and more interesting points to public discourse about violence. Starting in 2004, GKC Theatres (since absorbed into AMC Theatres ) introduced "R Cards", which parents could obtain for their children under 17 to see R-rated films without adult accompaniment. The cards generated much controversy; MPAA president Jack Valenti said in
10561-416: The MPAA's own website, further mentioning a bias against homosexual content compared to heterosexual content, particularly with regards to sex scenes. Filmmaker Darren Stein further insists that his tame teen comedy G.B.F. , which features multiple same-sex kisses but no intercourse, strong language, violence, or nudity, was "rated R for being gay." The 2011 documentary Bully received an R rating for
10740-537: The MPAA, the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), and the International Film Importers & Distributors of America (IFIDA). Only films that premiered in the United States after that date were affected by this. Walter Reade was the only one of 75 top U.S. exhibitors who refused to use the ratings. Warner Bros.-Seven Arts ' The Girl on a Motorcycle was the first film to receive
10919-413: The NC-17 rating to be removed and to have the X rating revived. He felt that everyone understood what X-rated means, while fewer people understood what NC-17 meant. MPAA chairman Dan Glickman has disputed these claims, stating that far more films are initially rated NC-17 for violence than for sex, but that these are later edited by studios to receive an R rating. Despite this, an internal critic of
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#173284552330111098-521: The North American box office in 1955. Lady and the Tramp is significant as Disney's first widescreen animated feature, produced in the CinemaScope process, and was the first Disney animated feature to be released by Disney's own distribution company, Buena Vista Distribution . By the mid-1950s, with Walt Disney's attention primarily set on new endeavours such as live-action films, television and
11277-492: The PG-13 rating, but violence that is both realistic and extreme or persistent will generally require at least an R rating. Snippets of language that go "beyond polite conversation" are permitted in G-rated films, but no stronger words are present. Profanity may be present in PG rated films, and use of one of the harsher "sexually-derived words" as an expletive will initially incur at least
11456-542: The Pauper , The Rescuers Down Under (1990) was Disney's first animated feature sequel and the studio's first film to be fully colored and composited via computer using the CAPS/ink-and-paint system. However, the film did not duplicate the success of The Little Mermaid . The next Disney animated feature, Beauty and the Beast , had begun production in London but was moved back to Burbank after Disney decided to shutter
11635-809: The Sea (2000), The Hunchback of Notre Dame II (2002), Mulan II (2004) and Tarzan II (2005). The success of the Disney Renaissance attracted the attention of many animation studios and film studios. Major film studios established new animation divisions such as Fox Animation Studios , Warner Bros. Feature Animation and DreamWorks Animation to replicate Disney's success by turning their animated films into Disney-styled musicals. Examples of said musicals include Cats Don't Dance (1997), Anastasia (1997), Quest for Camelot (1998), and The Prince of Egypt (1998). Many have hailed Walt Disney Animation Studios’ theatrical film releases from 2009 to onward as
11814-490: The Sea ") and for Best Original Score , earning an additional nomination for Best Original Song for " Kiss the Girl ". It also marked a significant turn by the studio back towards the darker and scarier villains typical of the films it had produced before Walt Disney's death. The Rescuers Down Under (1990) was released as the first sequel produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation. The film garnered mainly positive reception, but
11993-511: The Third film adaptation of the animated TV series based on the Monkey Punch comics, Castle of Cagliostro (1979), influenced the climax of The Great Mouse Detective , which in turn paved the way for the Disney Renaissance. The two-minute climax scene used computer-generated imagery (CGI), making it the first Disney film to extensively use computer animation , a fact that Disney used to promote
12172-492: The United States, and later released both the original NC-17 and the cut R-rated version on DVD. A Fox Searchlight spokesman said the NC-17 rating did not give them much trouble in releasing this film (they had no problem booking it, and only the Salt Lake City newspaper Deseret News refused to take the film's ad), and Fox Searchlight was satisfied with this film's United States box office result. Another notable exception
12351-627: The Wind "). However, its box office gross was far lower in comparison to what The Lion King earned the previous year. The following year, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Disney's first animated film produced at a budget over $ 100 million, opened to better reviews than Pocahontas , but a lower total box office of $ 325 million. Both films feature composer (now serving only as lyricist to Menken's music) Stephen Schwartz . When Hercules (1997), with songs by Menken and David Zippel , earned $ 252 million—$ 73 million less than The Hunchback of Notre Dame —at
12530-549: The X rating, especially over violence in films. In 1976, he got the board to give the Japanese martial arts film The Street Fighter an X rating for its graphic violence, the first time a film had earned that rating purely for violence. The NC-17 rating has been described as a "kiss of death" for any film that receives it. Like the X rating it replaced, NC-17 limits a film's prospects of being marketed, screened in theaters and sold in major video outlets. In 1995, MGM/UA released
12709-424: The action sequences, visuals, and performances but criticized the screenplay. It received unfavorable reviews from Chinese audiences, who criticized the character development, inaccurate depictions of Chinese history and mishandling of Chinese cultural elements. The fifth live-action adaptation, The Little Mermaid , was released on May 26, 2023 (directed and produced by Rob Marshall ). Alan Menken also returned as
12888-423: The animation department was in jeopardy. Going against a 30-year studio policy, the company founded a television animation division (now Disney Television Animation ), which produced such shows as DuckTales . In the interest of saving what he believed to be the studio's core business, Roy E. Disney , who resigned from the company in 1984, persuaded Eisner to let him return and supervise the animation department in
13067-410: The animation program at CalArts and trained by Eric Larson, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston and Woolie Reitherman, got their first chance to prove themselves as a group with the animated sequences in Disney's live-action/animated hybrid feature Pete's Dragon (1977), the animation for which was directed by Bluth. In September 1979, dissatisfied with what they felt was a stagnation in the development of
13246-434: The animation studio became Walt Disney Feature Animation ( WDFA ) in order to differentiate it from the company's other divisions. Its current name was adopted in 2006 after Pixar Animation Studios was acquired by Disney. For many people, Disney Animation is synonymous with animation, for "in no other medium has a single company's practices been able to dominate aesthetic norms" to such an overwhelming extent. The studio
13425-480: The animators created or formalized many of the techniques and processes that became the key tenets and principles of traditional animation. Silly Symphonies such as The Goddess of Spring (1934) and The Old Mill (1937) served as experimentation grounds for new techniques such as the animation of realistic human figures, special effects animation and the use of the multiplane camera , an invention that split animation artwork layers into several planes, allowing
13604-456: The art of animation at Disney, Bluth and several of the other new guard animators quit to start their own studio, Don Bluth Productions , which became Disney's chief competitor in the animation field during the 1980s. Delayed half a year by the defection of the Bluth group, The Fox and the Hound was released in 1981 after four years in production. The film was considered a financial success by
13783-489: The big-budget film Showgirls ; it became the most widely distributed film with an NC-17 rating (showing in 1,388 cinemas simultaneously), but it was a box office failure that grossed only 45% of its $ 45 million budget. Some modest successes can be found among NC-17 theatrical releases, however; Fox Searchlight Pictures released the original NC-17-rated American edition of the European film The Dreamers (2003) in theaters in
13962-596: The board to fire Miller. Roy E. Disney brought in Michael Eisner as Disney's new CEO and Frank Wells as president. Eisner in turn named Jeffrey Katzenberg chairman of the film division, The Walt Disney Studios. Near completion when the Eisner regime took over Disney, The Black Cauldron (1985) came to represent what would later be referred to as the "rock bottom" point for Disney animation. The studio's most expensive feature to that point at $ 44 million, The Black Cauldron
14141-547: The bottom. Jack Valenti , who had become president of the Motion Picture Association of America in May 1966, deemed the Motion Picture Production Code , which had been in place since 1930 and rigorously enforced since July 1, 1934, out of date and bearing "the odious smell of censorship ". Filmmakers were pushing at the boundaries of the code with some even going as far as filing lawsuits against
14320-495: The box office and became the highest-grossing first-issue animated film to that point. Katzenberg, Schneider, and Roy Disney set about changing the culture of the studio, increasing staffing and production so that a new animated feature would be released every year instead of every two to four. The first of the releases on the accelerated production schedule was Oliver & Company (1988), which featured an all-star cast including Billy Joel and Bette Midler and an emphasis on
14499-462: The box office and widespread positive reviews. Ron Clements and John Musker have the most films in the Renaissance era they directed with three each. Most of the films Disney released in the Renaissance era were well received. According to review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes , six of the movies— The Little Mermaid , Beauty and the Beast , Aladdin , The Lion King , Mulan , and Tarzan garnered approval ratings of over 85%, with
14678-489: The box office, news media began to openly suggest that Disney animation was on a downward trend of their animated film releases. Although it gained more positive criticism than Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame , it was still vulnerable to competition from companies such as DreamWorks Animation and Pixar . Disney's penultimate Renaissance film, Mulan (1998), with a score by Jerry Goldsmith and songs by Matthew Wilder and David Zippel, earned $ 304 million at
14857-704: The box office, and had laid off a large portion of their hand-drawn animators. However, the studio stated in 2019 and 2023 that they are open to proposals from filmmakers for future hand-drawn feature projects. In addition, in April 2022, Eric Goldberg , one of the studio's hand-drawn animators who has been working with the studio since 1992, confirmed plans within the Disney studio to once again return to hand-drawn animation. Kansas City, Missouri , natives Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney founded Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in Los Angeles in 1923 and got their start producing
15036-493: The camera to appear to move dimensionally through an animated scene. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs cost Disney a then-expensive sum of $ 1.4 million to complete (including $ 100,000 on story development alone) and was an unprecedented success when released in February 1938 by RKO Radio Pictures , which had assumed distribution of Disney product from United Artists in 1937. It was briefly the highest-grossing film of all time before
15215-532: The character animation on these productions and all subsequent features until the late 1970s was supervised by a brain-trust of animators Walt Disney dubbed the " Nine Old Men ", many of whom also served as directors and later producers on the Disney features: Frank Thomas , Ollie Johnston , Woolie Reitherman , Les Clark, Ward Kimball , Eric Larson , John Lounsbery , Milt Kahl , and Marc Davis . Other head animators at Disney during this period included Norm Ferguson, Bill Tytla and Fred Moore . The development of
15394-525: The characters. The fourth live-action adaptation, Mulan , was released on September 4, 2020. It was directed by Niki Caro with Harry Gregson-Williams acting as the new composer and songwriter for the film. Originally scheduled to be a wide theatrical release in March 2020, it was ultimately cancelled in the United States after being delayed multiple times due to the COVID-19 pandemic . Disney instead premiered
15573-410: The clear acetate sheets (" cels ") used in final animation production. The resulting art style – a scratchier line which revealed the construction lines in the animators' drawings – typified Disney films into the 1980s. The film was a success, being the tenth highest-grossing film of 1961 with rentals of $ 6.4 million. The Disney animation training program started at the studio in 1932 before
15752-522: The company became Disney's main competitor in the animation industry during the 1980s and early 1990s. Disney made major organizational changes in the mid-1980s after narrowly escaping a hostile takeover attempt by businessman and financier Saul Steinberg . Michael Eisner , formerly of Paramount Pictures , became CEO in 1984, and was joined by his Paramount associate Jeffrey Katzenberg as studio chairman, while Frank Wells , formerly of Warner Bros. Pictures , became president . In 1985, Peter Schneider
15931-467: The company's film and television production divisions, creating the Walt Disney Pictures banner under which future films from the feature animation department would be released. After a series of corporate takeover attempts in 1984, Roy E. Disney , son of Roy O. and nephew of Walt, resigned from the company's board of directors and launched a campaign called "SaveDisney", successfully convincing
16110-423: The content in them is suitable for all audiences even if containing mild objectionable content. If a film has not been submitted for a rating or is an uncut version of a film that was submitted, the labels Not Rated ( NR ) or Unrated ( UR ) are often used. Uncut/extended versions of films that are labeled "Unrated" also contain warnings saying that the uncut version of the film contains content that differs from
16289-448: The day-to-day operations in 1985. On February 6, 1986, Disney executives moved the animation division from the Disney studio lot in Burbank to a variety of warehouses, hangars and trailers located about two miles east (3.2 kilometers) at 1420 Flower Street in nearby Glendale, California . About a year later, the growing computer graphics (CG) group would move there too. The animation division's first feature animation at its new location
16468-609: The development of Snow White eventually led to Walt Disney helping found the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) . This university formed via the merger of Chouinard Art Institute and the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. It included a Disney-developed animation program of study among its degree offerings. CalArts became the alma mater of many of the animators who would work at Disney and other animation studios from
16647-402: The early workings of the ratings system is film critic and writer Stephen Farber, who was a CARA intern for six months during 1969 and 1970. In The Movie Ratings Game , he documents a prejudice against sex in relation to violence. The 2006 documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated also points out that four times as many films received an NC-17 rating for sex as they did for violence according to
16826-452: The extremes of violence, including Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill ". The film rating system has had a number of high-profile critics. Film critic Roger Ebert called for replacing the NC-17 rating with separate ratings for pornographic and non-pornographic adult film. Ebert argued that the system places too much emphasis on sex, while allowing the portrayal of massive amounts of gruesome violence. The uneven emphasis on sex versus violence
17005-499: The feature animation department created a caste system at the Disney studio: lesser animators (and feature animators in-between assignments) were assigned to work on the short subjects, while animators higher in status such as the Nine Old Men worked on the features. Concern over Walt Disney accepting credit for the artists' work as well as debates over compensation led to many of the newer and lower-ranked animators seeking to unionize
17184-503: The feature animation studio and outsourcing future animation. Roy E. Disney intervened, offering to head the feature animation division and turn its fortunes around, while Eisner established the Walt Disney Pictures Television Animation Group to produce lower-cost animation for television. Named Chairman of feature animation by Eisner, Roy E. Disney appointed Peter Schneider president of animation to run
17363-440: The film during marketing. Glen Keane , a leading animator for Disney films, has also credited Miyazaki's work as a "huge influence" on Disney's animated films. Disney had been developing The Little Mermaid (1989) since the 1930s, and by 1988, after the success of Touchstone Pictures ' Who Framed Roger Rabbit , the studio had decided to make it into an animated musical , much like many of its previous animated movies, but with
17542-498: The film industry, who dubbed the production "Disney's Folly", Disney proceeded undaunted into the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , which would become the first animated feature in English and Technicolor. Considerable training and development went into the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and the studio greatly expanded, with established animators, artists from other fields and recent college graduates joining
17721-508: The film itself, Spielberg also helped Disney produce three Roger Rabbit shorts . Disney moved to first place in box office receipts by 1988, with Who Framed Roger Rabbit being the summer's biggest hit. The Disney Renaissance was prompted by competition with Don Bluth's animated productions, along with the evolution of overseas animation, most notably the Studio Ghibli anime productions from Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki . His Lupin
17900-483: The film on September 4, 2020, on Disney+ , for a premium fee in countries where the service had launched. The film had a traditional theatrical release in countries without Disney+ where theaters have re-opened. With a production budget of $ 200 million, the film was a financial disappointment (partially due to the pandemic), grossing only $ 70 million, not including digital earnings from Disney+. The film received generally positive reviews from western critics, who praised
18079-591: The film on appeal, despite the British Board of Film Classification reducing the British rating from a 15 rating to a 12A on the grounds that the uses of the expletive were not directed at anyone. This was satirized in the 2005 film Be Cool , in which the film producer Chili Palmer ( John Travolta ) says: "Do you know that unless you're willing to use the R rating, you can only say the 'F' word once? You know what I say? Fuck that. I'm done." Often film producers will use
18258-476: The film's composer and wrote new songs alongside producer Lin-Manuel Miranda . The Little Mermaid grossed $ 298.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $ 271.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide gross of $ 569.6 million, making it the tenth-highest-grossing film of 2023 . Critics praised the performances of the cast and the musical sequences but criticized the visual effects and character designs. Vanessa Armstrong of /Film called it
18437-433: The film's final original box office take varying between $ 1.4 million and $ 1.9 million. However, Pinocchio was a critical success, winning the Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score , making it the first film of the studio to win not only either Oscar, but both at the same time. Fantasia , an experimental film produced to an accompanying orchestral arrangement conducted by Leopold Stokowski ,
18616-527: The film. Among those patrons were many children, not always accompanied by adults. This left many commentators incredulous that the ratings board would have found that a film with disturbing scenes such as a possessed 12-year-old girl masturbating with a crucifix was acceptable for children to see. Roy Meacham, a Washington, D.C., critic who had praised the film while admonishing parents not to take their children to it, recalled those children he did see leaving showings "drained and drawn afterward; their eyes had
18795-630: The films produced by Walt Disney from the 1930s to 1960s . The resurgence allowed Disney's animated films to become a powerhouse of successes at the domestic and foreign box office , earning much greater profits. After the deaths of Walt and Roy O. Disney (in 1966 and 1971, respectively), Walt Disney Productions was left in the hands of Donn Tatum , Card Walker , and Walt's son-in-law Ron Miller . Under their supervision, creative leadership over feature animated films largely fell to Wolfgang Reitherman . While certain films such as The Rescuers (1977) were commercially and critically successful, on
18974-647: The first film to do so losing to Spielberg's 1993 film Jurassic Park . Thanks to the success of the early films of the Renaissance era, Disney management was able to allocate sufficient money to bring Feature Animation back from its ten-year exile to Glendale. A 240,000-square-foot building designed by Robert A. M. Stern opened across the street from the main Disney lot in Burbank on December 16, 1994. The next Disney animated film, Pocahontas (1995), opened to mixed reviews, though it still earned $ 346 million worldwide and garnered two Academy Awards for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score and Best Original Song (" Colors of
19153-436: The first five films won awards in both categories. The Disney Renaissance is also notable for being its film Beauty and the Beast became the first animated film ever to be nominated for Best Picture . Eight of the films were nominated for Annie Awards , with seven of each films winning at least one: All soundtracks were initially released under Walt Disney Records in the format of CD and cassette . Many have attributed
19332-533: The first four being referred to by Roger Ebert as the "big four" in 1997. Pocahontas has the lowest reception of Disney's Renaissance films – it averaged 54% positive reviews. List indicator(s) The Rescuers Down Under is the only film in the Renaissance era not to have been nominated in both Annie and Oscar ceremonies. Nine of the ten films in the Disney Renaissance were nominated for Academy Awards , six of which won at least one Academy Award; six Best Original Song and five Best Original Score , with
19511-554: The hopes of improving its fortunes. Disney released The Great Mouse Detective (1986) a few months before Don Bluth released An American Tail (1986). An American Tail outperformed The Great Mouse Detective and became the highest grossing animated film to that date. Despite An American Tail ' s greater level of success, The Great Mouse Detective was still successful enough (both critically and commercially) to instill executive confidence in Disney's animation department. Oliver and Company (1988) would later be released on
19690-448: The inclusion of new Menken songs that deviated in tone from his previous creative zenith. Aladdin , directed and co-written by Guy Ritchie , is the second live-action Disney Renaissance adaptation theatrically released in the United States on May 24, 2019. Alan Menken returned again to write new music and songs with Benj Pasek and Justin Paul . It grossed $ 1 billion worldwide, becoming
19869-449: The kids, we lose everything". The studio began the 1970s with the release of The Aristocats , the last film project to be approved by Walt Disney. In 1971, Roy O. Disney, the studio co-founder, died and Walt Disney Productions was left in the hands of Donn Tatum and Card Walker , who alternated as chairman and CEO in overlapping terms until 1978. The next feature, Robin Hood (1973),
20048-412: The latter becoming the third-highest-grossing animated feature film of all time . It also had the highest-grossing worldwide opening of all time for an animated feature film up until the release of Nintendo and Illumination 's The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023). By 2013, the studio had no hand-drawn animated features in development as a result of their computer animated films performing better at
20227-436: The likelihood that adult-oriented movies are seen by the very groups for which they are not intended." As of March 2007, according to Variety , MPAA chairman Dan Glickman had been made aware of the attempts to introduce a new rating, or find ways to reduce the stigma of the NC-17 rating. Film studios have pressured the MPAA to retire the NC-17 rating, because of its likely impact on their film's box office revenue. In 2010,
20406-469: The main output accompanied by cartoons starring Mickey Mouse, Figaro and, in the 1950s, Chip 'n' Dale and Humphrey the Bear . In addition, Disney began reissuing the previous features, beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944, Pinocchio in 1945, and Fantasia in 1946. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s before being translated into
20585-406: The midst of the animators' strike, premiered in October 1941 and proved to be a financial success. The film cost $ 950,000 to produce, half the cost of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio , and two-fifths of the cost of Fantasia . Dumbo eventually grossed $ 1.6 million during its original release. Dumbo was the first Disney animated film to be completed at
20764-441: The minimum age for NC-17-rated films was raised to 18, by rewording it to "No One 17 and Under Admitted". The ratings used since 1996 are: Since September 1990, the MPAA has included explanations, or "descriptors", of why each film received an "R" rating, allowing parents to know what type of content the film contained. For example, the descriptor for The Girl Who Played with Fire read "Rated [R] for brutal violence including
20943-424: The movie and bringing the musical theater tradition into Disney . Upon release, The Little Mermaid was a critical and commercial success and garnered a higher weekend gross than Don Bluth's All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989), which was released on the same day, eventually breaking The Land Before Time ' s record of highest-grossing animated film. It won two Academy Awards for Best Original Song (" Under
21122-609: The next ten years. Most of the Disney Renaissance films were produced there, in the former Grand Central Airport , then known as the Grand Central Business Centre. (It should have been spelled "Center" in American English, but American business promoters sometimes resort to exotic British English spellings.) After the box office failure of the PG-rated The Black Cauldron (1985), the future of
21301-534: The non-trademarked "X" rating, and it soon became synonymous with pornography in American culture. In late 1989 and early 1990, respectively, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover , two critically acclaimed art films featuring strong adult content, were released. Neither film was approved for an MPAA rating, limiting their commercial distribution and prompting criticism of
21480-542: The original Animation Building of the Walt Disney Studios (Walt Disney Productions) in Burbank, California . In August 1942, Bambi was released and, as with Pinocchio and Fantasia , did not perform well at the box office. Out of its $ 1.7 million budget, it grossed $ 1.64 million. Production of full-length animated features was temporarily suspended after the release of Bambi . Given the financial failures of some of
21659-417: The packaging of MPAA-rated films via a settlement that would come into effect by fall that year. The ratings used from 1984 to 1990 were: In 1989, Tennessee state law set the minimum age to view a theatrically exhibited R-rated film without adult accompaniment at 18, instead of 17, and categorized the admission of minors to X-rated films as a misdemeanor . The statute remained in force until 2013, when it
21838-433: The production of new animated features, the first of which was Pinocchio , released in February 1940. Pinocchio was not initially a box office success. The box office returns from the film's initial release were below both Snow White 's unprecedented success and the studio's expectations. Of the film's $ 2.289 million cost – twice of Snow White – Disney recouped $ 1 million by late 1940, with studio reports of
22017-417: The profanity contained within the film, which prevented most of the intended audience, middle and high schoolers , from seeing the film. The film's director, Lee Hirsch, has refused to recut the film, stating, "I feel a responsibility as a filmmaker, as the person entrusted to tell (these kids') stories, to not water them down." A petition collected more than 200,000 signatures to change the film's rating and
22196-706: The project and completed the score and songs with Alan Menken. Rice later went on to collaborate with Elton John and Hans Zimmer for The Lion King after ABBA had turned down the offer to write songs for the film. Both films won Academy Awards for Best Original Song (" Can You Feel the Love Tonight ") and Best Original Score, and also like Beauty and the Beast won the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy). Aladdin also earned an additional Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song and nominations for Best Sound and Best Sound Effects Editing , for
22375-583: The rating system's PG classification "no longer matched a notion of childhood most parents in America could agree on." Steven Spielberg , director of Temple of Doom and executive producer of Gremlins , suggested a new intermediate rating between "PG" and "R". The "PG-13" rating was introduced on July 1, 1984, with the advisory "Parents Are Strongly Cautioned to Give Special Guidance for Attendance of Children Under 13 – Some Material May Be Inappropriate for Young Children". The first film to be released with this rating
22554-582: The rating system's lack of a designation for such films. In September 1990, the MPAA introduced the rating NC-17 ("No Children Under 17 Admitted"). Henry & June , previously to be assigned an X rating, was the first film to receive the NC-17 rating instead. Although films with an NC-17 rating had more mainstream distribution opportunities than X-rated films, many theaters refused to screen them, most entertainment media did not accept advertising for them, and many large video outlets refused to stock them. The ratings used from 1990 to 1996 were: In 1996,
22733-476: The ratings applied to individual motion pictures are the responsibility of the Motion Picture Association (MPA), previously known as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) from 1945 to 2019. The MPA rating system is a voluntary scheme that is not enforced by law; films can be exhibited without a rating, although most theaters refuse to exhibit non-rated or NC-17 rated films . Non-members of
22912-487: The recent features and World War II cutting off much of the overseas cinema market, the studio's financiers at the Bank of America would only loan the studio working capital if it temporarily restricted itself to shorts production. Features then in production such as Peter Pan , Alice in Wonderland and Lady and the Tramp were therefore put on hold until after the war. Following the United States' entry into World War II after
23091-459: The release of The Exorcist at the end of 1973, CARA president Aaron Stern took the unusual step of calling director William Friedkin to tell him that since it was an "important film", it would be rated R and could be released without any cuts. The film drew huge crowds upon its release, many of whom were so horrified by the film they vomited and/or fainted; a psychiatric journal would later document four cases of "cinematic neurosis " induced by
23270-448: The same day as The Land Before Time (1988). Despite The Land Before Time becoming globally the highest grossing animated film to that date, breaking the previous record of An American Tail , Oliver and Company outgrossed it in the United States, launching an era of increased theatrical turnout for Disney. In the 1980s, Disney collaborated with filmmaker Steven Spielberg —producer of An American Tail and The Land Before Time and
23449-481: The same time in 1988, Disney started entering into Australia's long-standing animation industry by purchasing Hanna-Barbera 's Australian studio to start Disney Animation Australia . While Oliver & Company and the next feature The Little Mermaid were in production, Disney collaborated with Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and master animator Richard Williams to produce Who Framed Roger Rabbit ,
23628-414: The shorts division was shut down in 1956. After that, all future shorts were produced by the feature films division until 1969. The last Disney short of the golden age of animation was It's Tough to Be a Bird . Disney shorts would only be produced on a sporadic basis from this point on, with notable later shorts including Runaway Brain (1995, starring Mickey Mouse) and Paperman (2012). Despite
23807-607: The stop-motion The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), a live-action adaptation of Alice in Wonderland (2010), and a stop-motion feature remake of Frankenweenie (2012). Bird was also fired after a few years working at the company for criticizing Disney's upper management as he felt that they were playing it safe and not taking risks on animation. He subsequently became an animation director at other studios, including Warner Bros. Animation and Pixar. Ron Miller , Walt Disney's son-in-law, became president of Walt Disney Productions in 1980 and CEO in 1983. That year, he expanded
23986-400: The studio and observe animators at work. That same year, the studio released The Little Mermaid , which became a keystone achievement in Disney's history as its largest critical and commercial success in decades. Directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, who'd been co-directors on The Great Mouse Detective , The Little Mermaid earned $ 84 million at the North American box office, a record for
24165-400: The studio to work on the film. The training classes, supervised by head animators such as Les Clark , Norm Ferguson and Art Babbit and taught by Donald W. Graham , an art teacher from the nearby Chouinard Art Institute , had begun at the studio in 1932 and were greatly expanded into orientation training and continuing education classes. In the course of teaching the classes, Graham and
24344-436: The studio was dedicated to producing short films until it entered feature production in 1934, resulting in 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , one of the first full-length animated feature films and the first U.S.-based one. In 1986, during a large corporate restructuring, Walt Disney Productions, which had grown from a single animation studio into an international media conglomerate , was renamed The Walt Disney Company and
24523-412: The studio's animation output was for the military. During the war, Disney produced the live-action/animated military propaganda feature Victory Through Air Power (1943), and a series of Latin culture -themed shorts resulting from the 1941 Good Neighbor trip were compiled into two features, Saludos Amigos (1942) and The Three Caballeros (1944). Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros set
24702-447: The studio's feature films. It was Reitherman who was responsible for a noticeable softening of Disney villains, and over the next two decades, nearly all Disney villains were more comical or pitiful than scary. Reitherman's main priority was ensuring that the studio would continue to turn a profit and towards that end, he stressed the importance of making family-friendly films. According to Andreas Deja , Reitherman said that "if we lose
24881-482: The studio's handling of home video releases. In 1948, Disney returned to the production of full-length features with Cinderella , a feature film based on the fairy tale by Charles Perrault . At a cost of nearly $ 3 million, the future of the studio depended upon the success of this film. Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box-office success, with the profits from the film's release allowing Disney to carry on producing animated features throughout
25060-413: The studio's highest-grossing animated feature since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , the film's large production costs and the box office underperformance of Disney's other 1959 output resulted in the studio posting its first annual loss in a decade for fiscal year 1960, leading to massive layoffs throughout the studio. By the end of the decade, the Disney short subjects were no longer being produced on
25239-686: The studio, and development continued on The Black Cauldron , a long-gestating adaptation of the Chronicles of Prydain series of novels by Lloyd Alexander produced in Super Technirama 70. The Black Cauldron was intended to expand the appeal of Disney animated films to older audiences and to showcase the talents of the new generation of Disney animators from CalArts. Besides Keane, Musker and Clements, this new group of artists included other promising animators such as Andreas Deja , Mike Gabriel , John Lasseter , Brad Bird and Tim Burton . Lasseter
25418-480: The studio, from top-level animators such as Art Babbitt and Bill Tytla to artists better known for their work outside the Disney studio such as Frank Tashlin , Maurice Noble , Walt Kelly , Bill Melendez , and John Hubley . Hubley, along with several other Disney strikers, went on to found the United Productions of America studio, Disney's key animation rival in the 1950s. Dumbo , in production during
25597-416: The studio. The film was built around a score from Broadway songwriters Alan Menken and Howard Ashman , who was also a co-producer and story consultant on the film. The Little Mermaid won two Academy Awards, for Best Original Song and Best Original Score . The Little Mermaid vigorously relaunched a profound new interest in the animation and musical film genres. The film was also the first to feature
25776-420: The success of the Disney Renaissance to a collection of key similarities found in most if not all of the films from 1989 to 1999. Broadway-style musical numbers were put into place that forwarded the narrative of each film. Characters used songs to showcase their internal emotions. Most of the Renaissance films had songs that have the main character singing what they want out of life as well as chorus numbers led by
25955-515: The supporting cast. Critics have also said that the music style of Renaissance films varies from film to film. An example would be The Little Mermaid having Calypso-style musical numbers and Hercules utilizing Motown in its soundtrack. The use of CAPS, action sequences, and inclusion of celebrity voice talent is also said to have drawn audiences in. Robin Williams ' performance as Genie in Aladdin
26134-742: The template for several other 1940s Disney releases of "package films": low-budgeted films composed of animated short subjects with animated or live-action bridging material. These films were Make Mine Music (1946), Fun and Fancy Free (1947), Melody Time (1948) and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). The studio also produced two features, Song of the South (1946) and So Dear to My Heart (1948), which used more expansive live-action stories which still included animated sequences and sequences combining live-action and animated characters. Shorts production continued during this period as well, with Donald Duck , Goofy , and Pluto cartoons being
26313-402: The theatrical release and might not be suitable for minors. If a film has not yet been assigned a final rating, the label This Film Is Not Yet Rated is used in trailers and television commercials. The MPA also rates film trailers, print advertising, posters, and other media used to promote a film. Rating cards appear at the head of trailers in the United States which indicate how closely
26492-771: The third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie , became Disney's first cartoon with synchronized sound and was a major success upon its November 1928 debut at the West 57th Theatre in New York City. The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons, distributed by Powers through Celebrity Productions, quickly became the most popular cartoon series in the United States. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, Silly Symphonies , debuted in 1929 with The Skeleton Dance . In 1929, disputes over finances between Disney and Powers led to Disney's animation production company, reincorporated on December 16, 1929, as Walt Disney Productions , signing
26671-419: The three instances of fuck in the musical to qualify it as PG-13 under MPAA guidelines. A study of popular American teen-oriented films rated PG and PG-13 from 1980 to 2006 found that in those films, teenaged characters use more and stronger profanity than adult ones in the same movies. However, the study found that the overall amount of such language had declined somewhat since the 1980s. Drug use content
26850-470: The time, it was the first animated film to reach $ 100 million at the box office in the US. The box office success also gave way to a profitable merchandising campaign. In 1994, it was the first Disney Renaissance film to receive a Broadway adaptation. Aladdin (1992) and The Lion King (1994) followed, respectively, with both films having the highest worldwide grosses of their respective release years. Aladdin
27029-436: The trailer adheres to the MPA's (and prior to November 2019, the MPAA's) standards. The MPA also creates blue feature tags for theatrical and home media use. Theatrical releases show the blue tag after the film, with home media releases showing it prior to the film. They feature the rating block and any content descriptors as assigned by the Classification and Rating Administration, the MPA logo, and links to MPA websites along
27208-574: The unprecedented success of Gone with the Wind two years later, grossing over $ 8 million on its initial release, the equivalent of $ 173,163,120 in 1999 dollars. During the production of Snow White , work had continued on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series of shorts. Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935, by which time the series had added several major supporting characters, among them Mickey's dog, Pluto , and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy . Donald, Goofy, and Pluto would all be appearing in series of their own by 1940, and
27387-438: The use of Disney's Computer Animation Production System (CAPS). Developed for Disney by Pixar, which had grown into a commercial computer animation and technology development company, CAPS/ink-and-paint would become significant in allowing future Disney films to more seamlessly integrate computer-generated imagery and achieve higher production values with digital ink and paint and compositing techniques. The Little Mermaid
27566-416: The whole the films released over the 18-year period following the death of the Disney brothers did not perform as well as the studio's previous work. One issue was that Reitherman was determined to produce only family-friendly material certain to turn a profit, and softened Disney villains so that they were more comical or pitiful than scary. An especially hard blow was dealt during production of The Fox and
27745-523: The word fuck : Adventures in Babysitting , where the word is used twice in the same scene; Antwone Fisher which has three uses; Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour , which has four uses (six in the "Taylor's Version" cut); The Hip Hop Project , which has seventeen uses; and Gunner Palace , a documentary of soldiers in the Iraq War , which has 42 uses of the word with two used sexually. Both Bully ,
27924-417: The word for a scene of gravitas or humor and then bleep out any further instances with sound effects. Some forms of media are cut post-release so as to obtain a PG-13 rating for home media release or to feature on an Internet streaming service that will not carry films rated higher than PG-13. In 2020, a recording of Hamilton was released on Disney+ after cuts by Lin-Manuel Miranda to remove two of
28103-553: The works of United Productions of America (UPA), whose flat art style and stylized animation techniques were lauded as more modern alternatives to the older Disney style. During the 1950s, only one Disney short, the stylized Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom , won the Best Short Subject (Cartoons) Oscar. The Mickey Mouse , Pluto and Goofy shorts had all ceased regular production by 1953, with Donald Duck and Humphrey continuing and converting to widescreen CinemaScope before
28282-644: The world. It is currently organized as a division of Walt Disney Studios and is headquartered at the Roy E. Disney Animation Building at the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, California . Since its foundation, the studio has produced 63 feature films , from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) to Moana 2 (2024), and hundreds of short films . Founded as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio ( DBCS ) in 1923, renamed Walt Disney Studio ( WDS ) in 1926 and incorporated as Walt Disney Productions ( WDP ) in 1929,
28461-480: The worldwide box office, restoring the commercial and critical standing of Disney's output. The release of Tarzan (1999) is retrospectively seen as the end of the Renaissance era. With a score by Mark Mancina and songs by Phil Collins , Tarzan won an Academy Award for Best Original Song (" You'll Be in My Heart "), and became Disney's most commercially successful film since The Lion King , earning $ 448 million at
28640-530: The years. Despite its financial failure, Fantasia was the subject of two Academy Honorary Awards on February 26, 1942 – one for the development of the innovative Fantasound system used to create the film's stereoscopic soundtrack, and the other for Stokowski and his contributions to the film. Fantasia was the final Disney animated film to be completed at the Hyperion Studio of the Walt Disney Studios (Walt Disney Productions) in Los Angeles. Much of
28819-464: Was The Great Mouse Detective (1986), begun by John Musker and Ron Clements as Basil of Baker Street after both left production of The Black Cauldron . The film was enough of a critical and commercial success to instill executive confidence in the animation studio. Later the same year, however, Universal Pictures and Steven Spielberg 's Amblin Entertainment released Don Bluth's An American Tail , which outgrossed The Great Mouse Detective at
28998-485: Was Walt Disney Animation Studios' first feature-length motion picture to win an Academy Award since Tarzan . Beauty and the Beast , directed by Bill Condon , was released on March 17, 2017, as the first live-action adaptation of the Disney Renaissance. Alan Menken returned for writing a new score and new songs with Tim Rice. The film grossed over $ 1.2 billion worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing live-action musical film, second-highest-grossing film of 2017 , and
29177-427: Was a critical and commercial failure. The film's $ 21 million box office gross led to a loss for the studio, putting the future of the animation division in jeopardy. Between the 1950s and 1980s, the significance of animation to Disney's bottom line was significantly reduced as the company expanded into further live-action production, television and theme parks. As new CEO, Michael Eisner strongly considered shuttering
29356-546: Was established by Disney to produce direct-to-video sequels to many of the Renaissance films utilizing the crew of their television animation studios. The Return of Jafar (1994), a sequel to Aladdin , was the first film to be released. Further sequels to Renaissance films include Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997), Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World (1998), The Lion King II: Simba's Pride (1998), The Little Mermaid II: Return to
29535-568: Was fired from Disney in 1983 for pushing the studio to explore computer animation production, but went on to become the creative head of Pixar , a pioneering computer animation studio that would begin a close association with Disney in the late 1980s. Similarly, Burton was fired in 1984 after producing a live-action short shelved by the studio, Frankenweenie , then went on to become a high-profile producer and director of live-action and stop-motion features for Disney and other studios. Some of Burton's high-profile projects for Disney would include
29714-422: Was hired as president of Disney's feature animation department, which was soon to be rebranded as Walt Disney Feature Animation . In the same year, to make more room for live-action filmmaking, the animation department was moved from the main Disney lot in Burbank to a "temporary" location in various hangars, warehouses, and trailers about 2 miles (3.2 km) east in nearby Glendale , where it would remain for
29893-550: Was key in renewing mainstream interest in American animation. Other than the film itself, the studio also produced three Roger Rabbit shorts during the late 1980s and early 1990s. A second satellite studio, Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida , opened in 1989 with 40 employees. Its offices were located within the Disney-MGM Studios theme park at Walt Disney World in Bay Lake, Florida , and visitors were allowed to tour
30072-414: Was not as financially successful as The Little Mermaid . However, it was notable for being the first film to be completely produced using Disney's new Computer Animation Production System (CAPS). The rest of the traditionally-animated films during this period would be produced using CAPS. Beauty and the Beast (1991) was Disney's next film and proved to be an immense critical and commercial success. It
30251-406: Was produced with a significantly reduced budget and animation repurposed from previous features. Both The Aristocats and Robin Hood were minor box office and critical successes. The Rescuers , released in 1977, was a success exceeding the achievements of the previous two Disney features. Receiving positive reviews, high commercial returns, and an Academy Award nomination, it ended up being
30430-507: Was recognized as the premier American animation studio for much of its existence and was "for many decades the undisputed world leader in animated features"; it developed many of the techniques, concepts and principles that became standard practices of traditional animation . The studio also pioneered the art of storyboarding , which is now a standard technique used in both animated and live-action filmmaking, as well as television shows and video games. The studio's catalog of animated features
30609-479: Was released in November 1940 by Disney itself in a series of limited-seating roadshow engagements. The film cost $ 2 million to produce and, although the film earned $ 1.4 million in its roadshow engagements, the high cost ($ 85,000 per theater) of installing Fantasound placed Fantasia at a greater loss than Pinocchio . RKO assumed distribution of Fantasia in 1941, later reissuing it in severely edited versions over
30788-587: Was revised to "PG". The ratings used from 1970 to 1972 were: The ratings used from 1972 to 1984 were: In the 1980s, complaints about violence and gore in films such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins , both of which received PG ratings, refocused attention on films seen by younger children. According to author Filipa Antunes, this revealed the conundrum of a film that "could not be recommended for all children but could also not be repudiated for all children uniformly," leading to speculation that
30967-455: Was ruled to be in violation of the First Amendment . The law was amended in 2013 as to prohibit persons under the age of 18 only if the film was considered "harmful to minors". In the rating system's early years, "X"-rated films such as Midnight Cowboy (1969) and A Clockwork Orange (1971) were understood to be unsuitable for children, but non-pornographic and intended for the general public. However, pornographic films often self-applied
31146-541: Was the John Milius war film Red Dawn . In 1985, the wording was simplified to "Parents Strongly Cautioned – Some Material May Be Inappropriate for Children Under 13". Around the same time, the MPAA won a trademark infringement lawsuit against the producers and distributors of I Spit on Your Grave over a fraudulent application of its R rating to the uncut version of the film, and forced its member studios and several other home video distributors to put MPAA ratings on
31325-558: Was the Silly Symphony cartoon Flowers and Trees , the first film commercially released in full Technicolor. Flowers and Trees was a major success and all Silly Symphonies were subsequently produced in Technicolor. By the early 1930s, Walt Disney had realized that the success of animated films depended upon telling emotionally gripping stories that would grab the audience and not let go, and this realization led him to create
31504-633: Was the first animated film nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture , remaining the only animated film nominated for Best Picture when that category had only five entries (1944–2008), and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy) and two Academy Awards, for Best Original Score and Best Original Song (" Beauty and the Beast "). Beauty and the Beast also received an Academy Award nomination for Best Sound , as well as two additional nominations for Best Original Song. In addition to being Disney's highest grossing animated movie at
31683-481: Was the first of a series of blockbusters that would be released over the next decade by Walt Disney Feature Animation, a period later designated by the term Disney Renaissance . The Renaissance era also saw the studio return to making films with darker themes and scarier villains, similar to the films it had made when Walt Disney was still alive. Accompanied in theaters by the Mickey Mouse featurette The Prince and
31862-413: Was the highest-grossing animated film at the time of its release, but later became second after being surpassed by The Lion King , which became the highest-grossing animated film at the time and remains the highest-grossing traditionally animated film in history. Howard Ashman wrote several songs for Aladdin before his death, but only three were ultimately used in the film. Tim Rice ultimately joined
32041-416: Was to have three ratings, with the intention of allowing parents to take their children to any film they chose. However, the National Association of Theatre Owners urged the creation of an adults-only category, fearful of possible legal problems in local jurisdictions. The "X" rating was not an MPAA trademark and would not receive the MPAA seal; any producer not submitting a film for MPAA rating could self-apply
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