With the release of “Planes”, I thought it’d be a good time to look back at the recent animated films that Walt Disney Pictures has distributed but didn’t actually produce. In other words, these are all non-Walt Disney Animation Studios/non-Pixar films:
DisneyToon Studios created a bunch of hand-drawn animated films in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, including “A Goofy Movie”, “The Tigger Movie” and sequels to Disney classics “Peter Pan” and “The Jungle Book” – “Return to Never Land” and “The Jungle Book 2”. However, none of them were financial hits. Some were critical successes: 2004’s “Teacher’s Pet” (based on the TV series) bombed at the box office, but received glowing reviews. DisneyToon is also behind “Planes”. Originally set for a Direct-to-DVD release, this is the first theatrical film from this studio since 2005’s “Pooh’s Heffalump Movie”.
Starz Animation was behind 2011’s delightful “Gnomeo & Juliet”, which put a comedic spin on Shakespeare’s tragedy. The film, which was released by Touchstone Pictures (a studio under the Disney umbrella), grossed close to $100 million in the US and a sequel is currently in development.
In the stop-motion department, you’ll find three modern animated classics: “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas”, “James the Giant Peach” and last year’s “Frankenweenie”, which was directed by Burton. And over the years, the Mouse House has also released several English versions of Studio Ghibli films, including Oscar winner “Spirited Away”, Oscar nominee “Howl’s Moving Castle”, “Ponyo” and last year’s “The Secret World of Arrietty”.
Other studios that have created animated movies distributed by Disney include Vanguard, with the 2005 pigeon comedy “Valiant”, starring the voices of Ewan McGregor and Ricky Gervais, and C.O.R.E Feature Animation‘s “The Wild” (2006), which many compared to DreamWorks’ “Madagascar”. And if you consider motion-capture “animation” (which I don’t), Image Movers Digital was behind the Jim Carrey adaptation of the Dickens story “Disney’s A Christmas Carol”, and one of Disney’s biggest box office disasters to date, “Mars Needs Moms”, which forced IMD to shut down for good.