Rhett Wickham: Great Animated Performances: Profiles of Modern Masters
Page 7 of 7
RW
Yes, but you like Jim Hawkins, you’re not sitting there hoping he’ll die so that you can be put out of your misery-
JM
Yeah, ‘Kill that kid! What’s he doing with the Japanese guy!?’
RW
Ugh that kid is so annoying
JM
Yeah, I haven’t seen it in a long time. I remember that when I saw it I didn’t get the kid. I just didn’t get with the kid. I’ll have to watch it again.
RW
Oh, get drunk before you watch it…
Ron sits quietly to one side, watching us as if waiting for us to calm down and behave. Finally we stop laughing.
RC
We have an agent now. We haven’t had an agent before – and we like him a lot, he’s a good guy and a smart guy and he cares about animation. As a result of that we’ve read a lot of live action scripts, more so than I’ve ever read and some have been very good and some have been very bad. And this is the thing that struck me – we’ve also read some shooting scripts. We’ve read some scripts that have not been through the development process that have been very good – and visa versa – but we’ve read some shooting scripts, you know ‘this is ready to go.’ And overall my sense is that some of the weakest stuff that we’ve read has been the shooting scripts. And it’s gotten to the point where you can just tell by reading the script that everybody’s got their hands in it.
I commiserate with them, and we chat for a while about the perils of live action, and the dangers of developing scripts with too many hands involved. Finally I ask the guys if there is anything they wish they could have done, or anything that they had a chance to do that slipped away.
JM
Well, we turned down BEAUTY & THE BEAST and LION KING. Other than that…
RC
Well we should explain that a little bit. It worked well with Howard on MERMAID, and as MERMAID was wrapping up Howard was working on BEAUTY & THE BEAST. We were wrapping up on MERMAID and we were really ….those films take their toll, and at the time it would have been like jumping right back into it and we were just too tired. Of course Kirk and Gary did a fantastic job with it. And it turned out pretty well.
Look fast, and you’ll catch a sudden flash of something mischievous behind Ron’s eyes. It’s subtle and fast, because it would be too obvious to wink. He continues without missing a beat:
It’s a great, great movie. And then…after that we didn’t know what we were going to do after MERMAID was over. We didn’t have any plans at that point for another project after MERMAID. We pitched to the studio… ironically enough they wanted to know if there was something we wanted to do and we both had the idea that we pitched which was WE’RE BACK!
JM
Dinosaurs in New York City, based on the book by…was it William Joyce? Is that right? I don’t remember now but that may not be right. (Note: it was written by Hudson Talbott.)
RC
But at any rate then they checked into it and found out that Spielberg had the rights to it so…
JM
And we were disappointed in the movie version. I thought it had a really good movie in it and I feel like they didn’t deliver. And this was before “Jurassic Park�? or anything…so…
RC
So then Jeffrey came back and offered us three films, and we were to pick one of the three. One was SWAN LAKE - which was ultimately made outside of Disney – and at any rate we thought that was just too close to MERMAID. Another one was then called KING OF THE JUNGLE, which of course turned into LION KING. And the other one was ALADDIN, so we didn’t actually turn down LION KING, it’s that we picked ALADDIN. We felt that ALADDIN was more up our alley than LION KING. We think of ourselves as fantasy guys, and ALADDIN had fantasy.
Ron pauses, just long enough to give John a shot and then he goes for it.
And once again, LION KING turned out …okay.
So help me, I swear I heard a snare drum and a cymbal.
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A special note: My sincerest thanks to Ron Clements and John Musker for allowing me to share this conversation with LP readers. Ron Clements and John Musker both are supporters and contributors to Basset Rescue Connection - a charitable non-profit that rescues and finds homes for pure-bred basset hounds and basset mixes. As part of a special fundraising drive for The Daphneyland Basset Rescue Ranch, Clements did something he hasn’t done in decades…. a drawing! Ron Clements’ whimsical and clever artwork can be seen at
http://www.bassethoundranch.org/plate.html . If you visit the Basset Rescue Connection tell them I sent you. – r.w.Discuss It
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-- Rhett Wickham
Rhett Wickham will return in May with his ongoing series of Great Animated Performances.
Rhett is a frequent contributor to LaughingPlace.com. Mr. Wickham is a writer, story editor and development professional living and working in Los Angeles. Prior to moving to LA, Rhett worked as an actor and stage director in New York City following graduate studies at Tisch School of the Arts. He is a directing fellow with the Drama League of New York, and nearly a decade ago he founded AnimActing©®™ to teach and coach acting, character development and story analysis to animators, story artists and layout artists - work he continues both privately and through workshops in Los Angeles, New York and Orlando. He can be reached through [email protected]
The opinions expressed by our Rhett Wickham, and all of our columnists, do not necessarily represent the feelings of LaughingPlace.com or any of its employees or advertisers. All speculation and rumors about the future plans of the Walt Disney Company are just that - speculation and rumors - and should be treated as such.
--Posted March 12, 2004