Walt Disney Animation Studios hasn't made a fully 2D-animated film since 2011's Winnie the Pooh, but is that about to change?
Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios Jared Bush recently spoke to The Wrap and teased that just might happen.
“I love 2D,” Bush said. “Right now we have 2D artists who are doing some bonkers amazing things. I’ll leave it at that,” teased Bush to a crowd at the Annecy Animation Film Festival.
From Wreck-It Ralph to the more recent Moana 2, Walt Disney Animation Studios has released 12 films since Winnie the Pooh, and all have been CG animated films.
The switch to 2D from CG likely occurred due to a loss of know-how for traditional hand animation techniques and rising production costs. To combat the first problem, Bush teased that he recently convinced Disney animation legend Ron Clements (The Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid) to come out of retirement and teach the current generation of animators.
Tackling the second issue is a different problem. Bush's peer at Pixar Jim Morris recently commented on the great cost that Pixar and Disney Animation films incur to produce their films in comparison to other animation studios.
"It’s only us and Disney Animation that makes animation films in the U.S. anymore with all of the artists under one roof. We feel like having a colony of artists approach has differentiated our films. We hope to find a path to make that work. Elemental was particularly expensive because all the characters have visual effects. We had been getting the film costs down," said Morris back when addressing Elemental's slow rise to profitability.
Despite both studios having made strides in lowering costs, the last seven films from Pixar and Disney Animation have all exceeded $100 million in production budgets, with most edging toward $150 million.
By contrast, rival studios are operating at a fraction of those costs.
Dreamworks Animation's Dog Man cost $40 million to make, while The Wild Robot has a production budget of $78 million, and Kung Fu Panda 4 cost $85 million to create. Paramount's Nickelodeon Movies also keeps their production costs low with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem having a production budget of $70 million, and Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie came in at $30 million.
The difference, as Morris stated, is that Pixar and Disney Animation movies are fully animated and produced in the U.S., while the other aforementioned studios outsource much of the animation to overseas animation studios, where the U.S.'s higher currency exchange rate does a lot of the heavy lifting.
There's been speculation in the past that Disney and Pixar could change their stance, but so far, they've been holding on to tradition.