Disney Developing New Hand-Drawn Winnie the Pooh Movie
By Kara Stanford-Jones
Disney is in the development stage for a new hand-drawn animated Winnie the Pooh movie. The movie is currently set to be released in 2011 and this is not one of the gobs of straight-to-DVD that Disney releases; they’re planning on a big theatrical release.
If you’re like me, you’re wondering where the hell this came from. Why go back to Pooh? Apparently, Winnie the Pooh is the second-largest licensed character behind Mickey Mouse.
Hopefully they’ll take some time to make it at least a decent story, but I’m not sure what they could do to make me interested. Maybe “Pooh visits Hell?” Personally, I think they should be working on inventing new animations like The Princess and the Frog or Up instead of just going back to the Disney vault.
That being said, I am excited about the animation; I like the fact that Disney seems to be headed back to the basics. I am all for the wonders that computers can do for animation, but hand-drawn animation is a bit more special.
What do you think? Are you excited for a Winnie the Pooh movie?
Source: FirstShowing
Friday, June 5, 2009 3:57PM
It could be ok if they come up with a decent story and go back to the whimsy of the original Pooh stories rather than the pre-school merchandising fodder that Disney Corp. had turned Pooh into over the years.
But overall … meh … why do we need another one of these ? I would much rather see them developing new stories and pushing the stylistic envelope of hand-drawn animation rather than always looking back to the past. Pixar is clearly the studio that is considered the Leader and the Forward Looking studio , while Disney Animation seems to be positioned now to always be the "B" studio.