Excerpt from
"The Black Cauldron": What Went Wrong by Jim Hill
Perhaps it was Ron Clements (I.E. The co-director of such Disney classics as "The Little Mermaid" and "Aladdin") who put it best. When he asked about "The Black Cauldron," Ron reportedly replied:
"That film was supposed to be our 'Snow White.' But we just weren't ready for it."
"Who's this 'we' that Clements is talking about?," you ask. The then-young turks who had invaded Walt Disney Studios back in the mid-1970s. That next generation of artists & animators who were supposed to take over for the "Nine Old Men" and then lead Disney Feature Animation into a bold new era.
Mind you, this extremely talented group would eventually take WDFA to amazing new heights, churning out box office smashes like "Beauty & the Beast" and "The Lion King." But that would happen in the early 1990s, when the Walt Disney Company was being run by Michael Eisner and the corporation was then willing to take a few risks.
Back in the mid-1970s, the studio side of Walt Disney Productions was being run by Ron Miller. And Miller ... He didn't really like to take risks. Particularly when it came to Disney Feature Animation and his pet project, "The Black Cauldron." Now, you have to understand that -- almost from the moment that Walt Disney Productions first acquired the rights to "The Prydain Chronicles" back in 1971 -- Ron thought that really great things would come from this project. That a truly fine film could be carved out of Lloyd Alexander's five book series. The sort of epic adventure that could vault Walt Disney Studios back to the very top of the Hollywood food chain.
And Miller's enthusiasm for "The Prydain Chronicles" project ... It was evidently contagious. Take -- for example -- this quote from Don Bluth. Who -- back in 1976, anyway -- was thought to be the future of Disney Feature Animation. One of the talented young artists who'd been entrusted to keep the traditions of "The Nine Old Men" alive.
Anyway, when asked by journalist John Culhane about what projects Disney Studios then had in the works that really excited Don, Bluth replied:
"Right now, enthusiasm for a story called 'The Black Cauldron' is boiling through the studio, and we hope that the new generation can touch people with that story in ways that Walt never dreamed of."
The only problem was ... Even though Miller was obviously excited about all of the possibilities involved with the "Prydain Chronicles" project ... Back in the mid-1970s, Ron didn't really think that the studio's young turks were actually up to the challenge of "The Black Cauldron." At least not yet anyway.
http://jimhillmedia.com/editor_in_chief1/b/jim_hill/archive/2006/02/10/712.aspx
Excerpt from Disney Film Behind Schedule August 10 1978
by Aljean Harmetz
by Aljean Harmetz
Los Angeles - "The Black Cauldron" Walt Disney"s $10 million animated film scheduled for 1980, is four years behind schedule.
It will not be completed until Christmas 1984, because the new crop of young animators the studio has spent six years acquiring are not yet competent to handle in complexities.
"The Black Cauldron" which is based on Lloyd Alexander's interpretations of medieval Welsh mythology,
will be replaced in 1980 by a simpler and easier movie about animal friendship, "The Fox and the Hound."
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