An all-star ensemble of beloved characters from Walt Disney Animation Studios is set to assemble in Once Upon a Studio for a joyful, entertaining and emotional reunion as they assemble for a spectacular group photo to mark Disney's 100th anniversary.
Featuring 543 characters from more than 85 Disney feature-length and short films, Once Upon a Studio welcomes heroes and villains, princes and princesses, sidekicks and sorcerers - in all-new hand-drawn and CG animation - to celebrate 10 decades of storytelling, artistry and technological achievements.
Today, two more stills have been released bringing more iconic Disney characters together; in one of those, for example, we see Zootopia's Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde crossing paths with The Princess and the Frog's Princess Tiana and Louis...as Pinocchio watches on!
Perhaps even more exciting, though, is a first look at the epic group photo showing those 543 characters all standing side-by-side. We could spend hours trying to identify everyone (one hardcore fan is bound to do so eventually) but there are some brilliant surprises to be found.
Earlier this year, co-director Dan Abraham addressed the mammoth task of assembling hundreds of Disney characters in this short. "Well, we wanted everybody, but that's just not possible," he explained. "We do have over 500 characters. And every main character from every film is represented, and then a bunch of the shorts."
"And then we would just come up with gags and ideas and mashups between characters and situations and what would flow into the next thing. And we kept going on and on and on until finally we had a list, like, 'You know what? We don't have this movie represented very well yet, where can we get that character?'"
"You'll see Stitch, and you'll see Ariel, and you'll see the Beast and that, but there's somebody out there that loves Johnny Appleseed. And there's somebody that loves Gurgi and Chicken Little, and they don't get to see those guys very much," the filmmaker continued. "So we wanted everybody to see their pals because that's what this was. It's a family reunion that hopefully you want to go to."
Written and directed by Dan Abraham and Trent Correy and produced by Yvett Merino and Bradford Simonsen, Once Upon a Studio will premiere on ABC on October 15 as part of The Wonderful World of Disney: Disney's 100th Anniversary Celebration. It's also set to hit Disney+ in the UK on October 16.
The short will also play in front of Disney Animation's Wish on November 22.