Walt Disney Pictures back to 2D, Pixar handles the CG!

by Chris December 20, 2006

The best news of 2006 in the eyes of Cybergosh:

John Lasseter and Ed Catmull are planning to return the Walt Disney Co.’s studios in Burbank to its roots as a “traditional” (hand-drawn) animation company exclusively, while Pixar will continue to turn out computer-generated features, Disney watcher Jim Hill reported on his website http://www.jimhillmedia.com Tuesday. In doing so, Lasseter, the chief creative officer for Disney Animation, and Catmull, the unit’s president, will be reversing Disney’s efforts over the past three years to, in Hill’s words, “retrain that studio’s staff as well as to change Disney Feature Animation into a state-of-the-art CG operation.” Hill observed that the plan has not yet been “entirely embraced” by Disney CEO Robert Iger. One result of the about-face, Hill noted, has been the cancellation of Disney’s plans to produce the computer-animated American Dog, a movie conceived and supervised by Chris Sanders, who ironically was responsible for Disney’s last big hand-drawn hit, Lilo and Stitch.