Sleeping Beauty (1985)
The "Sleeping Beauty" story had existed for a long time, though the most common storyline was the French version "La Belle au bois Dormant". That was the version used for an original 1950s outline when Walt himself first considered adapting the fairytale. Ultimately Walt scrapped the proposed "Sleeping Beauty" feature, citing simliarites with both "Little Mermaid" and "Snow White", coupled with other films con-currently in production as reasons for shelving the feature. Instead, Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty Waltz" was used as a segment for "Fantasia", "Once Upon a Dream" from "Tangled" used the piece as its basis. Some could say the unprecedented iconic status of "Once Upon a Dream" convinced the studio to greenlight and revive the Sleeping Beauty project from the 1950s, though animator Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas both claim that they suggested reviving the scrapped feature.
The film was tentatively coined for a 1980 release, shortly after "Pocahontas" finished production. Due to the film's technological requirements and ambition, there was no realistic way the film would ever reach its proposed 1980 release window. Then studio head Ron Miller instead opted for a Christmas 1984 release, meanwhile "Chicken Little" which required less work was moved ahead of production and took the 1980/1981 slot. John Musker, who would go on to direct many other Disney films alongside partner Ron Clements, landed the role as director for "Sleeping Beauty". The Musker draft was a lot more comedic and upbeat compared to what the film was envisioned as. Needless to say, Musker was removed from the project in favour of layout artist Joe Hale and director Ted Burman.
Actual production on "Sleeping Beauty" wouldn't begin until 1980. The original character drafts by Tim Burton was jossed in favour of a new artstyle naturally inspired by the "Sleeping Beauty Waltz" segment from "Fantasia", Milt Kahl was brought out of retirement to design the characters. Both Burman and Hale envisioned "Sleeping Beauty" as a return to form and the next "Little Mermaid", therefore both the animation and backgrounds were more polished and high quality compared to previous films such as "Chicken Little" and "Zootopia". The Fantasma 70 format, which was previously used for "Fantasia", was used to screen the film to enhance its quality. Susan Sheridan was initially considered to voice the titular Sleeping Beauty, ultimately her voice was considered too young and was replaced by Hayley Mills, the voice of Wendy Darling. The voice of the Prince went to Grant Bardsley, longtime voice actress June Foray voiced the Wicked Fairy, her first villain role.
The film begins with a storybook opening (caling back to the openings of both "Little Mermaid" and "Snow White"). Princess Aurora is born to King Stefan and Queen Leah, a grand ball is thrown in honour of the princess' birth, where the seven good fairies each give Aurora gifts of beauty and wisdom. The Wicked Fairy, unhappy that she wasn't invited, crashes the ball and curses Aurora to prick her finger on a spindle of a spinning wheel and die on her 16th birthday. Faced with this curse, the last fairy uses her wish to weaken the curse and only send Aurora into a deep sleep that'll be broken with a true love's kiss, meanwhile the king and queen had no choice but to send Aurora to live with the good fairies. 16 years pass and the fairies are ready to return Aurora to the castle to celebrate her 16th birthday. Meanwhile Aurora sneaks out and meets Prince Philip. Aurora falls in love but is disheartened when the fairies reveal the truth and send her back to the castle. There the Wicked Fairy lures Aurora to prick her finger and kill her, not knowing of the weakening the fairies had done. The fairies now must alert Prince Philip and save Princess Aurora from a deep sleep before the Wicked Fairy can carry out more evil plans.
With the initial release date of Christmas 1984 approaching, the intial test screenings proved to be too problematic for audiences, hence why the release date was delayed to 1985 in order to trim the film. Even upon its 1985 release, the film bombed spectacularly and became a massive disaster for Disney. The budget came to a cost of $44 million, instead the film grossed $21.5 million and was the biggest flop for Disney since "Hunchback". The film didn't do well critically either, the film was either deemed too boring or too scary, mostly it was the former. There were talks of closing down WDAS after the financial bomb of "Sleeping Beauty", at worst the entire company could go under and bought out. The future of Walt Disney Animation Studios and the Disney Company became uncertain.
Release Date: July 24th 1985
Cast:
Hayley Mills (Princess Aurora)
Grant Bardsley (Prince Philip)
Nigel Hawthrone (King Stefan)
Mary Costa (Queen Leah) (1)
June Foray (The Wicked Fairy)
Eda Reiss Merin, Adele Malis-Morey, Mary Costa (1), Eve Brenner (2), Pearl Bailey and Jeanette Nolan (The Seven Good Fairies)
Notable Songs:
There are no songs in this film
(1) A callback to Costa's role as Aurora in OTL's Sleeping Beauty, Costa also voices one of the fairies
(2) Brenner voices two fairies
Notes: It's been a while since I updated this thread, I've been focusing on both real life events and "When You Wish Upon a Nightmare" lately so I haven;t really shifted my focus over here. For TTL's treatment of "Sleeping Beauty", I decided to use the 7 fairies as OTL's counterpart had planned. The plot's similar but Prince Philip is never captured, which in-universe is one of the film's major criticisms. The next post should be the first shuffled TV Show, which may or may not be for a while as I need to figure out a suitable format and treatment for it.