John Lasseter, who currently holds the title of chief creative officer of
the Walt Disney Co., selected a stockholders annual meeting in New Orleans
Thursday to announce that Disney will return to hand-drawn animation in 2009
with a feature set in New Orleans. The feature, The Frog Princess, will be
directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, who oversaw The Little Mermaid and
Aladdin, and who were forced out by the studio’s previous management when it
decided to abandon hand-drawn animation in 2004. The movie will also feature
the first African-American princess to appear in a Disney animated film.
“We’re going back to hand-drawn animation,” Lasseter announced at the
meeting. “This movie is going to be classic Disney and yet you have never
seen this before.” The studio said that it plans to rehire many of the
animators it let go during the bloodletting following the failure of 2004’s
Home on the Range, Disney’s last “2D” animated film.

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John Lasseter, who currently holds the title of chief creative officer of
the Walt Disney Co., selected a stockholders annual meeting in New Orleans
Thursday to announce that Disney will return to hand-drawn animation in 2009
with a feature set in New Orleans. The feature, The Frog Princess, will be
directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, who oversaw The Little Mermaid and
Aladdin, and who were forced out by the studio’s previous management when it
decided to abandon hand-drawn animation in 2004. The movie will also feature
the first African-American princess to appear in a Disney animated film.
“We’re going back to hand-drawn animation,” Lasseter announced at the
meeting. “This movie is going to be classic Disney and yet you have never
seen this before.” The studio said that it plans to rehire many of the
animators it let go during the bloodletting following the failure of 2004’s
Home on the Range, Disney’s last “2D” animated film.

add to del.icio.us