(MENAFN- Arab Times) It's hard to imagine a media juggernaut like Disney Animation going through rough times. The Turn of the century saw the House that Mickey built divided. Along with trying to compete with the rising popularity of Jeffery Katzenberg's Dream Works Studios, Disney has also had to compete with other interest within the company itself. The staying power of Pixar had only begun to establish itself as the leader in animation. For 10 years Disney Animation put out a mixed bag of effort.
They scored a minor hit with the 2,000 effort Dinosaur but faced major write downs for The Emperors New Groove. Their woes would only continue as 2001's Atlantis: The Lost Empire and 2002's Treasure Planet bombed at the box office. Despite this, in 2010 it would seem Disney was about to release its biggest flop yet. 6 years in production and 260 million in costs. Disney bet their future on what was, at the time, the fifth most expensive film ever made.
This film seemed to decide the direction of Disney studios for the next 5 years and beyond. That movie turned out to be the highly successful Tangled. The film caused a thematic shift in the way Disney began to make its films. It shifted the focus away from marketing towards any one demographic, specifically to young girls, and instead decided to make a string of films designed for the whole family. Their approach to making films that are gender-neutral has given them a string of successes. So after a decade of irrelevance, Disney studios finally seemed to regain a foothold as the leader in animated feature films.
Marketing
The thematic shift in Disney's films started with President of Pixar and Disney Animation Ed Catmull, pointing out a flaw in the way Disney sold its films. When it came time to market The Princess and the Frog in 2009 Disney marketing warned the animation studio about the use of the word 'Princess' in the title. They claimed that leaving it in the title "" would lead moviegoers to think that the film was for girls only." Despite this the studios insisted on keeping the title as it was. Catmull called this the Disney version of a 'stupid pill." While the film ultimately became a success it didn't perform as well as many of Disney's more beloved efforts from the 90s. For their next effort Disney finally decided on a new approach. They took their charming new princess film Rapunzel and changed it into a fun buddy comedy called Tangled.
The studio has not looked back since. After Tangled they made their video game nostalgia cash-in Wreck-It-Ralph. The male-lead film established the studios new family-oriented direction. Their most recent effort Big Hero 6, benefitted from the current popularity of super-hero films. The fact that it was a Marvel imprint probably helped as well.
Efforts
In 2013 the studio attempted to return to the princess film. Still they didn't want to fall into the same pitfalls as previous efforts. They took the Hans Christian Anderson story "The Snow Queen" and turned it into the smash sensation Frozen. They adapted the classic fairy tale in a very different way from their more common formula. Instead of a princess fighting a force of evil to find her true love, the film focused on two sisters attempting to fix their strained relationship. Frozen went on to become the highest grossing animated film of all time, passing Pixar's Toy Story 3 and Dream Works Shrek 2.
Disney Animation has managed to find its stride in this new, changing environment. It has proven that animated films can be and should be made to delight the entire family. They show no signs of breaking this trend. In 2016 the studio is slated to release Zootopia and Moana. The former features a buddy cop scenario between a fox and a rabbit, while the other features a princess in a wild adventure film. With his inclusive approach to animation Disney is fast approaching a second renaissance similar to the period the 90s, a period that saw them produce massive successes like The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Lion King, just to name a few. It looks like the house of mouse is recapturing its glory days once more.
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