15 Canceled Disney Movies That Never Saw The Light Of Day
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These Disney movies sounded great on paper, but somewhere along the way got cancelled. Here are the ones that got away.
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Who doesn’t love Disney? If you answered “me” to that question, please close your web browser, turn off your phone, computer, or whatever other device you’re reading this on, and re-evaluate your life. I’d say I’m joking, but it takes a very special kind of person to not love a single movie in Disney’s vast catalogue. Maybe you were one of the millions of people touched by the story of toys coming to life in Toy Story, or maybe you enjoyed thinking about a whole new world of your own after enjoying the adventures of Aladdin and Jasmine in Aladdin, or perhaps you gave up seafood after laughing and crying over a clownfish’s journey to find his son in Finding Nemo. Whatever it is, when it comes to Disney, there’s always something for everyone to enjoy.
To date, Disney has released over 5o feature films and many specials and short films on top of that. Disney has entertained families in the comfort of their own homes and on vacation with their numerous amusement parks like Disneyland and Disney World in America, Disneyland Paris, or DisneySea in Tokyo. Recently, the company made headlines with their shocking decision to purchase the Star Wars IP and also with their own small break into the gaming industry with the creation of Disney Infinity attempting to compete with Nintendo’s niche Amiibo market. Disney also made a partnership with Studio Ghibli, a company which is in many ways Japan’s “Disney,” and distributed anime classics like Spirited Away and My Neighbour Totoro. However, as many people say, “without failure there can be no success,” so today let’s take a look at the times where for one reason or another Disney was forced to cancel production.
15 We Weren’t Ready For The Wild Things
Where the Wild Things Are is a children’s picture book written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak and published by Harper & Row. The book is arguably one of the most successful and critically acclaimed children’s books of all time. As of 2009 it has sold 19 million copies worldwide. Its success sparked a live action/CGI feature film adaptation in 2009 using the same name. Disney aimed to capitalize on the book’s following and showed interest in creating a full-length animated film adaptation of their own all the way back in 1983, so much so that they created a 30 second test animation. However, due to budget reasons, Disney decided not to produce the film. Although Warner Bros. had success with their film, this story seemed right up Disney’s alley and we would have loved to have seen it done Disney style!
14 A Gigantic Loss
Jack and the Beanstalk is among the most beloved fairy tales and folk stories of all time. It’s up there right alongside Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Cinderella, and Little Red Riding Hood. The story is so commonplace that it has sparked countless film adaptations, short features, and remakes. Some of the most recent being Jack the Giant Slayer (2013), and Jack and the Beanstalk (2009), and the tale also played a large role in the box office success Into the Woods (2014). Disney also planned their own musical animated adaptation, Gigantic, and planned to use the same songwriters from Frozen. The project was ultimately pulled, and Disney and Pixar executive, Ed Catmull, had this to say of the unexpected cancellation: “It’s impossible to know when we begin a project how the creative process will unfold, and sometimes, no matter how much we love an idea or how much heart goes into it, we find that it just isn’t working”.
13 A Cancelled Sequel Decades Later
The Aristocats was an animated musical film produced by Disney and released in December of 1970. One of the oldest films on this list, The Aristocats is still one of the most successful earning high praise from The New York Times and famed critic Roger Ebert. The plot revolves around the cats of aristocrats in Paris in the year 1910. While the film only scored a 66% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it harbored enough success to earn a re-release in 1980, with a total gross of over $55 million to date. Disney planned to produce a sequel in 2005, but ultimately the film was cancelled when John Lasseter was appointed Chief Creative Officer, due to differences in business strategy with his predecessor.
12 The Concept Art Was Stunning
Dumbo is a Disney film with an interesting history, primarily due to its time of release. The film was released in 1941 before the attack on Pearl Harbor in World War II. The film was a box office success, whose joy and brightness was contrasted by the meek and harrowing circumstances of the time. Despite that, the film was highly acclaimed and earned over $1.4 million with its original release, winning the Academy Award for Best Original Score. The film has a 97% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, one of the highest-rated Disney films on the site. Unfortunately, despite this success, this film was another to fall victim to the John Lasseter cancellations after he was named CCO. Hopefully we can see production resume on this picture in the future.
11 But Everyone Loves This Series!
When talking about Disney Channel original animated series, certain titles always come to mind like Recess, Kim Possible, and The Weekenders. Another title that also makes the cut is Disney’s Phineas and Ferb. The story follows two young stepbrothers, Phineas & Ferb, and their summer vacation adventures. The two boys are often joined by their sister Candace, their pet platypus Perry, and the villain of the show, Dr. Doofenshmirtz. The show had great success amounting 222 episodes, airing from 2007–2015. A made-for-tv movie, Phineas & Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension, was created and garnered enough success for Disney to plan a feature film production. However, due to unknown reasons it was announced in 2014 that Disney had removed the film from their list of productions.
10 A Prequel Many Years Later
Snow White may be one of Disney’s most iconic movie characters of all time, and for good reason. Many may not know that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first-ever full-length animated film to be released in America. The film premiered on December 21, 1937, and with a budget of just over $1.4 million ended up grossing over $416 million. Although almost everyone in the world has heard the name Snow White, it’s hard to find someone who can name all of the seven dwarfs, and Disney sought to bring the dwarfs into the spotlight in the early 2000s with a CGI animated production titled The Seven Dwarfs. The film was meant to be a prequel, focusing on the lives of the dwarfs before Snow White came into the picture. However, yet again, this was another project that was cancelled after John Lasseter become Chief Creative Officer.
9 A Ghostly Romp With Mickey
When it comes to Disney, no character is perhaps more iconic than Mickey Mouse, the poster boy for the company. Thus it’s always surprising when a Mickey film doesn’t come to fruition. Morgan’s Ghost, also known as Three Buccaneers or Pieces of Eight, was a Mickey, Donald, and Goofy movie in development around 1939. The story was about Mickey’s group going off on a Pirates of the Caribbean-type adventure where they would journey to Morgan’s Island in search of hidden treasure. It’s unclear why the producers left this film unmade, but perhaps they thought the story better fit a different medium as it was ultimately released as a comic book, Donald Duck finds Pirate Gold.
8 This One Still Stings A Bit
When people think Disney Pixar, the first film that always comes to most minds is Toy Story. However, when I think of Disney Pixar, A Bug’s Life is the first film that springs to my head and I’m reminded of childhood hours spent watching and rewatching the animation greatness, portraying tiny insects in gorgeous and ground-breaking Pixar 3D animation. When I think of Disney Pixar, I also think of Finding Nemo, and more recently, The Good Dinosaur. In those terms, Newt seemed to be the type of movie that Pixar animation would flourish with. The plot featured two newts brought together to procreate, as the last hope of their endangered species. The only problem: they hate each other. Unfortunately, the film was cancelled so the company could focus on other projects, and Brave was released instead.
7 Instead, You Got Chicken Little
Compared to other titles on this list, A Few Good Ghosts (originally known as My Peoples) is a dark horse, that is to say no one really knows about this film, but in my opinion it perhaps had the most potential. The film was in development in the late 90s headed by the co-director of Mulan, Barry Cook. The plot centered around two families in Texas with a Romeo & Juliet-esque narrative complete with toy dolls coming to life. Basically it would have been Romeo & Juliet meets Toy Story, and who wouldn’t want to see that? However, after a lot of work having been done and Cook making creative sacrifices to satisfy other executives, the film was ultimately scrapped in place of Chicken Little, a film that Disney believed to have more potential.
6 Not The Gremlins You Know And Love
Not to be confused with the 1984 Steven Spielberg film of the same name, Gremlins was a film considered by Disney in the early 1940s. Acclaimed children’s writer Roald Dahl, who wrote such classics as Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and James and The Giant Peach, wrote The Gremlins children’s book specifically for Disney. But why was the film never released? Well, because of the close proximity with World War II, complications supposedly arose with the British Security Coordination, whom Dahl was working with at the time. Published in Neal Gabler’s biography titled Walt Disney, Disney wrote to Dahl saying that, “Definitely, The Gremlins will not be made as a feature because of the feeling on the distributor’s part that the public has become tired of so many war films.”
5 An Unlikely Duo
Now, we’ve heard of The Prince and The Pauper and The Princess and the Pea, but what on earth is The Prince and the Pig? Well, apparently The Prince and the Pig was a Disney film in progress in the early 2000s. Disney acquired the idea for the film from Rian Johnson, apparently a copywriter or scribe at the time. There is very little known about this film, except for its plot which centered around a young boy and a pig who set out on an adventure with one goal in mind: steal a piece of the moon. Interested? Well, Disney certainly thought you would be, as many websites reported that Disney bought rights to the film. However, the film was never released and there is little to no news about any further development.
4 The Road Ends Here
When you talk about classic musicals, you can’t forget to mention the timeless tale of The Wizard of Oz. Based on L. Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Wizard of Oz was a film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1939 and is considered to be one of the best films of all time. The film won multiple awards, including Best Original Song for Over the Rainbow. Disney tried to capitalize on the story’s popularity with an adaptation of their own titled Rainbow Road to Oz. The film was proposed and in early development in the late 1950s with a sneak peek released. However, the film was ultimately never produced. I don’t know about you, but who wouldn’t want to see a full-feature animated musical remake done Disney style?
3 We’re Afraid This One Had To Go
Fraidy Cat was a rather interesting and unorthodox concept as far as Disney films go. This production was meant to be an animated film-noir. The film is set in London about a cat named Oscar trying to clear his name from a framed crime. The film began production in 2004 and was cancelled in 2005. The production was meant to be an homage or satire of Alfred Hitchcock films. I know what you’re thinking: Disney and Hitchcock noirs? The two don’t mix, and such was the thinking of the executive that ultimately pulled the plug on the production due to a lack of marketability to a more general audience. The concept of the film itself was quite ambitious. But film noir and Disney? Come on. It was pretty easy to see that cancellation coming.
2 The TV Show Tried To Make Up For It
When it comes to Disney classics, you often hear people cite The Lion King, Toy Story, Pocahontas, The Little Mermaid, and so on. One title that is kind of a hidden gem is Disney’s Hercules, coincidentally one of my favorite movies (let alone Disney movies) of all time. Hercules, as the title ensues, is about the mythical son of Greek gods Zeus and Hera. He has his immortality stripped from him by the evil god Hades, and must prove himself a true hero to regain his status as a god. The film received a great response, grossing over $252 million at the box office and earning an 83% score on Rotten Tomatoes. It also earned an Academy Award nomination for best original song for the song “Go The Distance.” Because of this, Disney was initially interested in making a sequel that would be loosely based on the events of the Trojan War, but the idea never came to fruition. There was, however, an animated series created that lasted 67 episodes.
1 Searching For The Mouse
There are many, many items on this list that we wish weren’t. Many of these canceled movies seem to have enough potential to warrant a change of heart on the part of Disney. Perhaps The Search for Mickey Mouse is a film that Disney really should reconsider. Why? The film’s plot has already proven success. The story is about the abduction of Mickey Mouse and his friends’ quest to find him. A main character from every major Disney film was said to have a cameo in the movie. Sound familiar? Well, it should for many PlayStation 2 gamers, as this is quite similar to the huge RPG success Kingdom Hearts. The film was first discussed in the early 2000s and officially cancelled in 2002, supposedly due to problems with the overall story. However, coming off the repeated success of the Kingdom Hearts series, this is one film that Disney can’t afford to leave cancelled.
Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/canceled-disney-movies-that-never-saw-the-light-of-day/