Lilo, Stitch And Sigur Ros

I've gone on and on about the movements of Lilo and Stitch director Chris Sanders, but what of Dean DeBlois, his co-pilot?

He's got another film out soon - in November, in fact. And while I hadn't heard of it until this afternoon, I'm suddenly rather excited to see what he's made.

Heima is to be rather unlike his hula-infused animated debut, however. It's a concert film, showing the Icelandic band Sigur Ros, and reportedly constructed from a selection of very intimate shots, many of them sustained close-ups. Looking at the trailer, I can see that it also reveals a very wide open sense of Iceland.

DeBlois comes across brilliantly on the Lilo and Stitch DVD supplementary features, particularly the feature-length documentary The Story Room.

According to imdb, which doesn't list Heima, DeBlois is also at work on another animated feature, The Banshee and Fin Magee. Don't forget his name.

Shifting Sands For American Bunny, Buttons

Thomas Haden Church has been telling Sci-Fi Wire about his role in American Dog, the Disney toon originated by Chris Sanders, now being directed by Chris Williams.

We had a session, they went away, I went to Pittsburgh to work, and then I didn't hear from anybody for quite a while. Then I talked to Clark, the producer, at the beginning of January and he told me that Lasseter had replaced the director and they were just starting to completely rewrite the movie. So I used to play a one-eyed rabbit named Buttons. I'm not really sure what I'm playing anymore. I'm kind of kidding. I think the characters are going to remain intact, but the story is shifting. So I'm waiting, waiting for a script to arrive at my ranch.

Dreamworks Gets Talent

Variety have announced that Chris Sanders, director of Lilo and Stitch and originator of American Dog, has signed to Dreamworks. His first project is to be Crood Awakening, previously in development with Aardman and co-scripted by John Cleese.

Add to this the fact that Disney 3D's Phil McNally is headed to Dreamworks too and it seems like the Dreamworks Animations' batting average might be about to increase drastically.

Of course, it looked that way when Aardman signed, and while I suppose it was true - no other animation from the studio even comes close to Curse of the Wererabbit - the sad fact is, both Chicken Run and Flushed Away were, frankly, sub-par for Aardman efforts. Dreamworks also dumped Richard Goleszowski's Tortoise and the Hare, one of Aardman's most interesting and ambitious concepts.

If Aardman did good for Dreamworks, yippee for Dreamworks - but they did bad for Aardman, so I was glad to see the partnership fold. I don't want the same to be true of Sanders and McNally. I want to see them do even better work than they have at Disney.

Chris Sanders Out At Disney, New Director - And Plot! - For American Dog

Jim Hill Media have a very intensive break down of the comings-and-goings at Disney over American Dog, their big release for next year. Many of the characters we've seen in test footage have now been axed, the lead character redesigned and the plot radically revamped. Curiously, the story (which you can read at Jim Hill Media) seems like a weird hybrid of Buzz Lightyear's arc in Toy Story and the direct-to-DVD 101 Dalmatians sequel Patch's London Adventure.

According to the report, John Lasseter was not a fan of Lilo and Stitch. I love the film, for the most part - it's the visual style and set-pieces, mainly - but it is obvious that the third act was severely lacking and depended on some dry, overlong dialogue scenes and a touch of deus ex machina to get the loose ends anything like tied up. That film's director Chris Sanders is an obvious talent however, and I think Disney might live to regret losing him.

American Dogs' new director is reported to be Chris Williams, a story artist on Mulan and The Emperor's New Groove. If he's had the nod from Lasseter, I'm sure he's a good guy but, for now, we can only cross our fingers and hope that he has the odd wit and idiosyncratic style of Sanders.

American Dog For 2008

Chris Sanders' American Dog will be the next Walt Disney Feature Animation film, due for release in 2008. Where's that champagne again?

Bloomberg confirmed it today, quoting John Lasseter. He's full of good news, that Lasseter.

The Real Reason American Dog Has Been Canned

Chris Sanders, the writer-director behind Lilo and Stitch was, until very recently, working on American Dog for Walt Disney Feature Animation. Scheduled for 2008, all that had been seen of the film so far was some production art, very short clips - including a lovely one of the Dog catching a ride on a box car - and a couple of rendered images. Advance word was, however, very good indeed even though the film was still only in development, not even officially greenlit.

And then, in the last few days, the news broke that Sanders was being removed from the project.

Jim Hill Media now has the skinny on why this really happened - and I found it really quite surprising.

Apparently, there are to be no more CG animated films from the Walt Dinsey stable after next spring's Meet The Robinsons. Pixar are to monopolise the CG medium, while the Disney label is to be once more attached only to cel-animated movies. I read at Jim Hill's that Glen Keane's Rapunzel Unbraided is likely to be retooled as a hand-drawn work rather than axed outright while, presumably, either Sanders or American Dog were not proving so flexible - but this does not explain why development on the film couldn't be shifted over to Pixar. There is always a small chance it will be revived there, I suppose - but at the moment, that doesn't look very likely.

If Lasseter and Catmull can convince Iger, this will be the way ahead from now on and so-called-2D animation will be back in full force at the Mouse House. Personally, this sounds like a very good thing in almost all ways with just a few details not sitting quite right with me. I'm going to miss American Dog, that's for sure; and I don't know if, truthfully, Rapunzel Unbraided should be cel-animated. Maybe it needs to be a CG film?

All we can do is trust in Lasseter...