The Fumbled Launch of a New Era
When production on Disney’s last traditional animated film Home on the Range finished in 2002, then-CEO Michael Eisner laid off most of the employees at the Feature Animation studio in Burbank, downsizing the department to a single unit. The Paris studio closed in 2003. Walt Disney Animation Florida followed suit in 2004. And, with that, Disney was officially out of the business of producing traditional animated feature films.
With the company now solely focused on producing computer animation productions, morale in the studio plunged to a level not seen since the mid-1980s, especially when Eisner began literally selling off Disney’s traditional animation equipment, some of which had been at the studio for decades. But Eisner was unperturbed by the growing dissent over his decisions, particularly given he had now filled the executive ranks of the studio with loyal subjects who wouldn’t dare question his leadership.
But there was still one vocal opponent to Eisner’s authority in the form of then-chairman Roy E. Disney, who was deeply concerned over the direction and style of Eisner’s management and the studio’s sharp exit from the art form his uncle had defined six decades earlier. In the midst of Disney beginning to craft his campaign to remove Eisner from power, the studio began production on its first fully computer-animated feature film, Chicken Little.
The idea for Chicken Little first began in September 2001 when The Emperor’s New Groove director Mark Dindal commenced development on the project. Initially, Dindal envisioned the title character as an overly-anxious, pessimistic female chicken (to be voiced by Holly Hunter), who is sent to a summer camp called Camp Yes-We-Can by her concerned father to help build her confidence and save their relationship. While at the camp, she would uncover a dastardly plot by her camp counsellor (to be voiced by magician Penn Jillette) to destroy her hometown.
After working on the project for eight months, including preliminary recording sessions with both Hunter and Jillette, Dindal was called into Eisner’s office and bluntly informed Eisner didn’t think audiences would accept a female chicken as an action hero, nor would they warm to the plight of a young girl attempting to repair her relationship with her father. Eisner also felt a male-centric film was more likely to be a box office hit, with his theory that young girls will see films about boys but young boys won’t watch movies about girls. As such, he demanded the Dindal rework the project with a male chicken protagonist in the lead. Michael Eisner, ladies and gentlemen.
Despite Hunter’s recording sessions progressing enormously well, the actor was let go from the project (and subsequently snapped up by Pixar for the female action lead in The Incredibles), as Dindal set about adapting the project to Eisner’s tastes. While Dindal had originally pitched the project as a traditional animated feature, Eisner’s announcement in 2002 of the cessation of the art form spun the development on its head and suddenly Chicken Little was greenlit as the studio’s first fully computer-animated film.
In early 2003, there was a change of leadership at Walt Disney Feature Animation, with then-president Thomas Schumacher leaving the studio to run Disney Theatrical Group and then-president of Walt Disney Television Animation David Stainton appointed as his replacement. Stainton immediately asked for a progress report from Dindal on Chicken Little. What he was shown did not impress the new president.
Stainton felt the summer camp setting ultimately lacked charm and was unlikely to work in territories outside America. He knew this film needed to succeed on a global scale and prove Disney could compete with the likes of Pixar and DreamWorks. As such, he allowed Dindal three months to revise the script and create an entirely new narrative around the titular male chicken protagonist.
While Dindal set to work on rehashing Chicken Little, Stainton was dealing with an even larger problem; an animator revolt. By April 2003, the Disney animation department had settled into two opposing groups; those with skills in computer animation and those who refused to adapt to the new technology. On April 4, veteran Disney animator Glen Keane organised a meeting of 50 of his colleagues to discuss the future of animation, which soon became a heated debate between the two groups, with some arguing computers should not replace hand-drawn animation, while others express their fears they would be forced to draw by hand.
After the meeting, Stainton called Keane into his office in an attempt to solve the brewing war. Keane had been with the studio since 1974 and Stainton knew the strength of having such an influential animator on his side. Keane used the meeting to pitch an adaptation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Rapunzel, which the animator had been sitting on since 1996. Stainton offered a solution; rally the animators to adopt computer animation and the studio would greenlight the Rapunzel project.
With Keane on board, the revolt slowly fizzled and those animators who survived Eisner’s layoffs were put through a rigorous 18-month training program to learn computer animation technology. Meanwhile, Dindal had been furiously rewriting Chicken Little with Steve Bencich, Ron Anderson, and Mark Kennedy.
THE STORY
In the small town of Oakey Oaks, which is populated by anthropomorphic animals, Chicken Little rings the school bell and warns everyone to run for their lives. This sends the whole town into a frenzied panic. Eventually, the Head of the Fire Department calms down enough to ask him what is going on, and he explains that the sky is falling because a piece of the sky shaped like a stop sign had fallen on his head when he was sitting under the big oak tree in the town square; however, he is unable to find the piece. His father, Buck Cluck, who was once a high school baseball star, assumes that this "piece of sky" was just an acorn that had fallen off the tree and had hit him on the head, making Chicken Little the laughingstock of the town. A year later, Chicken Little has become infamous in the town for being prone to accidentally ruin everything. His only friends are outcasts like himself: Abby Mallard (nicknamed "Ugly Duckling"), Runt (who is an extremely large pig), and Fish Out of Water (who wears a helmet full of tap water). Trying to help, Abby encourages Chicken Little to talk to his father, but he really only wants to make his dad proud of him.
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Dindal then set about finding the right voice to bring the titular chicken to life, with over 40 actors auditioning for the directing including Michael J. Fox, Matthew Broderick, and David Spade. But the director was impressed by television star Zach Braff’s audition, with the actor able to elevate the pitch of his voice to sound like a junior high schooler. Braff also brought the right balance of energy and awkwardness to the character that perfectly fit how Dindal saw the protagonist, and the actor was offered the role.
For the role of Chicken Little’s best friend, Ugly Duckling, Dindal originally considered casting Will & Grace star Sean Hayes in the role. However, the character was soon re-written as a female love interest known as Abby Mallard, with Dindal initially considering numerous actors for the role including Jamie Lee Curtis, Sarah Jessica Parker, Geena Davis, and even Madonna, for some bizarre reason. But the director wanted the character to be more inherently comedic and offered the role to Joan Cusack for her innate ability with natural comedy.
MY VERDICT
First thing I should say is that the characters in this film are mostly HORRIBLE, especially the father who all but abandons his son to the mockery and ridicule of their whole town. Secondly, the animation is incredibly primitive. Thirdly, the story is quite forgettable and you’ll need to watch it a number of times to remember it, if you can bear that.
Is Chicken Little a Disney Classic? It may have been the beginning of a new phase in Disney history, but it was done in a horribly disappointing way. The story is forgettable, the characters are horrible and the animation is primitive. The film opened the door to more possibilities, but it would still be some time yet before the studio would craft a computer-animated Disney Classic.
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