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The story about Reynard is that Walt Disney thought he was too unsympathetic to be a good protagonist. Eventually in the early 60s, they planned to use him in a version of the tale of Chanticleer - based on Edmond Rostand's play - which Don Bluth remembered and used as the basis of Rock-a-Doodle. It would have been like a Broadway musical, long before the Ashman-Menken stuff in the 90s Disney films.
Unfortunately Walt's expenses on Disneyland and his plans for EPCOT meant that they had to only release one film every four years. It was either Chanticleer or The Sword in the Stone. Everyone knew Chanticleer wasn't going to make it when one of the Disney brass said that no one would ever watch a film with a chicken as the protagonist.
The other reason why Sword in the Stone went ahead is that Bill Peet was the story man on it. He recently was the sole story man of 101 Dalmatians so the company had a lot of faith that he'd make a smash success, something they needed another of after Sleeping Beauty underperformed (due to audiences fishing it too dark, and being really expensive to make).
It's interesting they took what they thought was a 'safe bet' instead of a film that probably would've been, being one of the first films to tap into the braodway formula, and due to the constraints of animation, in much less time to the audience then something like The Music Man. While this is all an assumption, the sheer success of 90s Disney movies and the current Disney musicals shows that audiences very well might've been interested. Also, lol at the guy who though that no-one would see a film about a chicken, when a duck and a mouse were their biggest characters and they just made a film about dogs.
Love reading up about the unmade Disney movies, would be great if they made some of them for the new streaming service especially if they made some of the 2d ones, and yes I know
Here are few of the more interesting ones
Fraidy Cat was meant to be directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, the duo behind disney movies such as Aladdin, Hercules and most recently Moana , it was meant to be a Alfred Hitchcock parody
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Oscar, a cat and Corina, a cockatoo are pampered, spoiled house pets that live an easy life in their owner's London flat. However, when a fellow neighbourhood pet is kidnapped and Oscar is the prime suspect, the two must set off on a mission to find out who the real culprit is so that they can clear Oscar's name.
Newt, was a pixar movie which was canceled as it's plot was similar to that of Rio which also would have beat Newt planned release, what is interesting about this movie is with the Fox deal, Disney are about to own the Blue Sky Studios the makers of Rio.
King of the Elves, based on the short story by Philip K. Dick, it was meant to be directed by Aaron Blaise and Robert Walker who only directed Brother Bear previously however at some point Chris Williams took over directing duties. Was due out in 2012 but was shelved in 2009 ,only to be put back into development in 2010 for a 2013 release however they ran into "story problems" which killed the movie.
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Based on Philip K. Dick's 1953 short story fantasy "The King of the Elves", the film is about a band of elves and one dwarf living in the modern-day Mississippi Delta who name a local human, Calder, their king after he helps save them from an evil troll.
Tons of other interesting movies that have been cancelled for many different reasons since the 1940s, stuff like Chanticleer which was first canceled due to WW2 then but back in development in both the 1960 and 80s. Reynard the Fox due to him being to dark for for Walt Disney to be the protagonist of a movie, at one point he was planned to be the villain of a verison of the unmade Chanticleer movie. A Sinbad the Sailor movie which was canceled after Aladdin for some reason, Jeffrey Katzenberg when forming Dreamwork Animation took the idea along with him and what would become Antz as well.
Did you hear the reason Fraidy Cat was cancelled was that Mike Eisner said something along the lines of 'no one wants to see a film anout a dead fat guy'. As a fan of old movies, I find this really annoying but really, would a general audience give a shit about Hitchcock? Probably not.
You heard about My Peoples? It was gonna be the second film by the director of Mulan but when the Florida studio shut down, it was either Chicken Little or this, and Chicken Little won. It was even far enough along to have noticed actors and musicians to write the score and songs.
The story was an old one with a unique spin. It's the 40s in Appalachia. Two kids fall in love but their families are bitter enemies. The girl's father tries to erase the boy's memory, but through some twist of fate, it brings the boy's folk art, little figures carved from objects to look like people, are brought to life, possessed by the spirits of the boy's family who what the couple to get together. Except Angel(played by Dolly Parton). She runs off leaving Abe and Cherokee (dolls based on Lincokn and An Indian to chase after her, whole the rest run interference to get the couple together, things such as getting the girl's fiance to split. The dolls would be CGI but everything else traditional, due to how poor full CGI looked in '03. This would give the dolls an otherworldly feeling. Over all I think the story had promise.
Speaking of Chicken Little, that was originally much much different. First of Chicken Little was an actual chicken, a girl that is, and instead of the whole aliens plot, it would've taken place at a Summer Camp. Chicken Little was heavily paranoid and her parents thought it best for her to get out of the house and make new friends where people didn't know her. Abby, the Ugly Ducking would've be male at this point. The twist, the threat of the story is that the camp counsellors are literal wolves in sheep's clothing who want to eat the campers. While not stated it can be assumed that Chicken Little would find out and everyone would think her delusional
Look how cute she was!