"Chicken Little" Critical for Disney Reputation

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Next month Walt Disney hopes to prove the sky is no longer falling. The adorably round-headed star of its computer-animated movie, "Chicken Little," will make the case that the storied studio has moved into the next generation of animation and can produce the type of hit films that once were its signature – and an important profit center. In the works for five years, "Chicken Little" is the first computer-generated feature film created by Disney animators and follows a string of traditionally animated films that failed to perform as well as many computer-made competitors. Disney's new effort follows Chicken Little's travails in middle school a year after his disastrously incorrect observation that the sky was falling. It debuts November 4 in the midst of Disney's talks with Pixar Animation Studios Inc over whether Disney will continue to distribute and share profits from Pixar's computer-generated, or CG, films and could prove an important factor if a deal is struck, analysts said. Disney's studio has had a number of golden ages with hand-drawn animated features centering around hits such as the 1937 film, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," and in 1994 "The Lion King." Partner Pixar has had animated hits since 1995. Ryan Ball, a senior writer for the online Animation magazine said the studio, known for its "Disney Look" and classic story lines, may have to sacrifice both to tap into a more sophisticated audience that now includes young adults.

Analysts said the film must open big and perform well overseas for Disney to be considered a player in the new world of animation, where DreamWorks Animation SKG's "Antz" was not considered a success despite $170 million in worldwide ticket sales. "My gut instinct is they need to do something in the $350 million range to be seen as 'Disney's on its way back in animation,"' Rich Greenfield, an analyst at Fulcrum Global Partners, said. "If it does $200 million or $250 million worldwide, it will not be seen as the way to replace Pixar." Although about 150 animators had to be trained in CG to make "Chicken Little," the studio says it has closed the gap and is on track to release one CG animated film for each of the next three years: "Meet the Robinsons" in 2006, "American Dog" in 2007 and "Rapunzel Unbraided" in 2008. Time magazine writer Richard Corliss, one of the first critics to review the film, praised it as "a genuine Disney cartoon" and "one of the funniest, most charming and most exhilarating movie in years." "Chicken Little" director Mark Dindal, who watched the transition from hand-drawn to CG animation at Disney during the making of his film, said studio founder Walt Disney, who championed new technology, would have been proud. "It was like horses at the starting gate waiting to get their chance," Dindal said of the animators. "We just caught a wave of all this pent up excitement of people saying, 'We'll show you what we can do."'