Menken, Musker, Clements return to Disney Animation
Posted on March 2nd 2006 in Disney movies & televisionAfter Disney’s acquisition of Pixar, new animation head John Lasseter is rounding up the animation talent that Michael Eisner had worked so hard on chasing away. This week Disney announced that it has signed on Alan Menken, John Musker and Ron Clements, who were behind such hits as The Little Mermaind and Aladdin.
Bloomberg News reported that Disney CEO Bob Iger made the final decision to acquire Pixar while watching a parade at the new Hong Kong Disneyland park. While watching the parade it appeared that all the new characters were from Pixar films, not Disney ones. “It really hit me hard that we had had 10 years of real failure,” Iger said on the company’s last ten years under Michael Eisner, who left the Walt Disney Company in 2005. “Keeping animation strong is incredibly vital.”
The future of Walt Disney Feature Animation under Disney CEO Robert may just have gone a little brighter. The Hollywood Reporter reported that Disney has signed on legendary composer Alan Menken, an eight-time Oscar winner and one of the driving forces behind The Little Mermaid to a nonexclusive, multipicture deal.
Musker and Clements, who together directed The Great Mouse Detective and Hercules, among other Disney films, have already begun work on the lot in Burbank, discussing story ideas with Lasseter on a daily basis while they also oversee the digital remastering of The Little Mermaid, which Disney is preparing to release on DVD.
