If you know your animation history well enough, you know that even the biggest studios can have false starts. A big studio can announce the development of a new animated film, only so that this film never sees daylight, for one reason or another. Pixar, for example, has ax its own titles to be too similar to those of competing studios, like time it Deleted “Newt”, a film on the procreation of the newts, of its calendar On concerns, it was too similar to the “Rio” of Blue Sky Studios, as an example. Sometimes, however, it is as simple as the management team of a studio that moves, like when The planned adaptation of Netflix of the series of fantastic books “Redwall” was sent to the development of hell due to the changing priorities of the studio.

Finally, in some cases, there is an even simpler excuse: if a film does not manage well at the box office, any potential following goes the path of the sleep.

This was the spell of the planned follow -up of Disney 2002 animated functionality (and the massive box-office flop) “Treasure Planet”. It was a film bold enough simply in terms of concept and scope, but Disney leaders were confident about his prospects – so much so that they approved a direct video suite before the film was released. In fact, they had gone so far as to ensure that part of the casting of the original film would return and would be joined by an excellent actor with a voice made for animation. Admittedly, bringing Willem Dafoe to the Disney animation world was perfectly logical, and he was so close to this that he almost recorded a dialogue for the suite “Treasure Planet” … until Disney completely cancels him.

The notion behind “Treasure Planet” was simple: and if there was an animated adaptation of the emblematic novel by Robert Louis Stevenson “Treasure Island” with a science fiction flair? A piece of the scenario of “Treasure Planet” is very similar to “Treasure Island”, even for the members of the public with just a feeling of consciousness of the history of Jim Hawkins (expressed here by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his adventures on a pirate ship with the long and self-persongage of John Silver (Brian Murray), a captain (Emma Thompson), other keyboard characters. As indicated by John Musker and Ron Clements, “Treasure Planet” is an ambitious film which was undoubtedly intended to please young boys more than girls – the perception of the Disney Marketing team being that the young male audience was alienated by stories based on women like “Lilo & Stitch” or “Mulan”. (Of course, this means that you should ignore solid box office yields to Disney’s animated operation in 1999 “Tarzan” as a recent example compared to the release of the film.)

Despite the presence of Musker & Clements, which had co-edited beloved Disney classics such as “The Little Mermaid” and “Aladdin”, “Treasure Planet” failed to hit him at the box office when he was released in the fall of 2002. Now the context is essential: although the film was released during the Thanksgiving competition. Leaving aside the presence of the James Bond film “Die Another Day”, “Treasure Planet” had direct competition for the attention of families of another Disney title, “The Santa Clause 2.” But none of these films was as intimidating as “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”, which dominated the holiday box office. So, it may not be too shocking that “Treasure Planet”, which had a budget reported of $ 140 million, earns only $ 109 million worldwide. Even with moderately positive criticisms, the film simply could not pierce the noise.

And that is exactly why the planned suite of the film died on the vine at the same time as the original film was in theaters. According to Jun FalkensteinWho had been the director of the DisneyToon studios “The Tigger Movie” and was ready to direct the suite “Treasure Planet”, everything was put forward the 2002 holiday season. She had worked on a general preview, in which Jim Hawkins studied in an academy supervised by Captain Amelia (Thompson) and must finally associate to repel the bad Captain Ironbeard. Actors like Gordon-Levitt, Murray and Thompson were on board, and had to be joined by Willem Dafoe as Ironbeard. According to Falkenstein, she was ready to record Dafoe’s first round of dialogue on Monday after the opening weekend of “Treasure Planet”, until she received a call from Disney leaders completely canceling the rest.

It is easy to imagine that fans of “Treasure Planet”, which can be legion even if the film’s box office does not suggest it as much, would be disappointed with the loss of a suite “Treasure Planet”. (It should be noted that a few years later, when now-Ex-Honcho John Lasseter has joined Disney as a creative framework, it except a DisneyToon Studios ax and its direct video suites.) But for Willem Dafoe fans, it was not long time to hear his voice in the Disney world. About six months after “Treasure Planet” collapsed at the box office, the animated film of Pixar “Finding Nemo”, was released to have a success in theaters; Among his vast set of actors, there were Dafoe, expressing the gruff but useful aquarium fish branches, whose daring spirit allows Nemo to escape the anchoring of his dentist. Dafoe has since appeared in some of Dubs in English from Ghibli studio moviesLike “Tales from Earthsea” and “The Boy and the Heron”, in addition to doing movement and voice capture work for its director “Finding Nemo” Andrew Stanton on Disney film “John Carter”.

However, we came to have Dafoe in the world of Disney animation proper. (Falkenstein’s interview involved that he was literally 30 minutes from her voice recording when she discovered that the film had been canceled.) In the meantime, we can only imagine how perfectly her voice would be appropriate as a harmful pirate. In the early 2000s, there was already enough evidence that Dafoe could be an incredibly charismatic villain, as when he played the green goblin in the first “Spider-Man” film by Sam Raimi earlier in 2002. But while we came, the suite “Treasure Planet” which was not entirely won.