Walt Disney Pictures Animation has shelved plans to make Gigantic, an update of the time-honored Jack and the Beanstalk tale. Without question, Disney has been the gold standard in animation since the release of its first full-length feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. Dominating the hand-drawn animation genre for decades after that, the studio quickly adapted to computer animation following the groundbreaking debut of Pixar's Toy Story in 1994, a film that Disney distributed at the time and company it became permanent partners with after it purchased the animation studio in 2006.
Both Disney Animation and Pixar have grown leaps and bounds since then, with Ed Catmull serving as the animation studio's president and John Lasseter as its chief creative officer. In the last five years alone, the Best Animated Feature Film Oscar either went to a Pixar or Disney Animation film: including Brave (2010) and Inside Out (2015) from Pixar, and Frozen, Big Hero 6 and Zootopia from Disney.
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With animation being such a painstakingly detailed process, Disney's upcoming releases - including Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2 and Frozen 2 - have been in the works for years. Sadly, however, another project in development, Gigantic, has been cancelled by the studio. According to THR, Catmull delivered news of the film was being pulled from the development, and another would be taking its place on the release schedule. He says:
“It’s impossible to know when we begin a project how the creative process will unfold, and sometimes, no matter how much we love an idea or how much heart goes into it, we find that it just isn’t working. With Gigantic, we’ve come to that point, and although it’s a difficult decision, we are ending active development for now. We are focusing our energies on another project that has been in the works, which we’ll be sharing more about soon, now set for Thanksgiving 2020."
What that new animated project will be is yet to be seen, but THR revealed that insiders are saying it will be an original feature. Disney Animation announced at CinemaCon in April that Gigantic was set to release on November 25, 2020, two years later than originally planned.
The news of Gigantic's fate will no doubt come as a disappointment to Disney Animation fans, given that Gigantic was loaded with behind-the-scenes talent. A Jack and the Beanstalk update that would have found Jack befriending a female giant, Gigantic was set to be co-directed by Inside Out co-writer Meg LeFauve, and was to feature original tunes by Frozen's Oscar-winning songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez.
Fortunately for the three creatives, there's plenty of high-profile work ahead, as Lopez and Anderson-Lopez are sure to craft songs for Frozen 2; while LaFauve is busy at work co-writing the screenplay for Disney-Marvel's Captain Marvel with Nicole Perlman and Geneva Robertson-Dworet.
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Source: THR