Editor's note: "Fantasia 2000" is playing exclusively in IMAX theaters around the country. There are no IMAX-registered auditoriums in Utah, so the closest venues are in Boise and Las Vegas. Regular theaters will begin showing the film in April or May.
Roy E. Disney was speaking long distance from New York, but the ear-to-ear grin was there in his voice.He was chatting the morning after the world premiere of his new movie, "Fantasia 2000," a Carnegie Hall show that had the London Philharmonia playing the score live, synchronizing the music precisely to the animated action on screen, be it leaping and plunging whales, a jack-hammering construction worker or a yoyo-flinging flamingo.
"It went sensationally," said Disney, the show's executive producer. "We were more than delighted. It's a bit of a high-wire act to run the film and have the orchestra play, but it just went absolutely as good as it can get."
In many ways, "Fantasia 2000" is a high-wire act even when it is screened with a recorded score. It breaks many of the 1980s and '90s rules of Disney animation: It's being released during the winter instead of the summer and just as the holiday school break is ending; it is geared more toward adults than children; it doesn't lend itself well to plush toys or McDonald's giveaways; and it was scored by great classical composers of the recent and distant past, with nary a number by Elton John. If that weren't limiting enough, Walt Disney Pictures has chosen "Fantasia 2000" for its first foray into the jumbo-screen IMAX format, restricting its opening to some 70 screens worldwide instead of thousands.
But Roy E. Disney did not resurrect the "Fantasia" franchise to meet some corporate formula for success, or to placate Disney investors looking to the chairman for a project that will immediately boost their slumping shares.
For Roy Disney, "Fantasia 2000" has been an eight-year labor of love, an homage to the pioneering spirit his Uncle Walt and his father, Roy O. Disney, gave to their company, and a tribute to the 1940 concert film that has always been his favorite.
"For me it's been very personal," said Disney, who turns 70 next month. "It was an idea that always appealed to me. I remember my father coming home one day very shortly after the (1940) film had come out, and he was amused by the idea that Walt wanted to do next 'Flight of the Bumblebee' because he had that great stereophonic sound system and he wanted to fly the bee around the room, which I always thought was an interesting, subversive sort of idea because if you could make the audience look for the bee instead of looking at the screen it would be kind of interesting."
"Fantasia" had been one of Walt's pet projects, born out of his love for great animation and classical music. It originally had begun as a short starring Mickey Mouse as "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," but the film took on a life of its own and wound up as a two-hour fantasy-rich montage of fairies, winged horses, dinosaurs and ostriches in ballet slippers. Walt was so pleased with the movie that, despite its whopping $2.28 million price, he announced plans to make "Fantasia" an annual event, retaining many of the original pieces with an additional work or two added for each release. Roy E. Disney explained why that never came to pass.
"I think one of the effects of (World War II), which was the next five or six years of all our lives, was that the company was not so far from bankruptcy by the time it was over. Many of the good artists had been drafted, and Walt set out to make training films and propaganda films and so on, and we were spending a lot more than we were getting back in a lot of ways.
"My dad sold our house at the end of the war. So we were really pretty close to the edge, and it wasn't until 1950-51 -- the 'Cinderella' days -- that things started to turn back for the good."
But then came Disneyland and TV projects such as "The Mickey Mouse Club" and "The Wonderful World of Disney," and "Fantasia" fell by the wayside.
The successful 1991 video release of "Fantasia" inspired Roy to pick up where his uncle left off. He watched the original a few times and even read the 1940 reviews, before setting out a plan for the new work.
"What I was looking for basically was structure, because you need to have a beginning, a middle and an end for the thing to make sense as anything but a collection of shorts."
The film opens with a vibrant, geometric interpretation of Beethoven's famous Fifth Symphony, continues with an aerial whale ballet set to Ottorino Respighi's "Pines of Rome," and moves on to a narrative about life in 1930s Manhattan inspired by the line drawings of Al Hirschfeld and set to George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue."
Donald Duck gets his day in Edward Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance" marches, best-known as theme music for graduation ceremonies.
Francis Glebas, a storyboard artist at Disney, earned his feature film directing debut after pitching a story idea for it in Disney's in-house brainstorming forum known as "the gong show."
"I had thought of an idea for 'Fantasia' of Noah trying to get the animals on the ark," Glebas said. "I thought it was such a funny idea. I set it to Rossini's 'Barber of Seville' so it was very energetic and animated.
"So when they suggested Donald and 'Pomp and Circumstance,' I heard the theme in my head and saw the animals and knew I had great idea, and they went for it."
Roy has preserved one piece from the original for "Fantasia 2000," "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," remaining true to his uncle's intention of keeping a core element and, at the same time, giving contemporary Disney fans context for all those images of Mickey in the long red robe and the magician's hat, a popular motif seen even outside the studio's animation building in Burbank. Some "Fantasia 2000" watchers have complained that, although "Sorcerer" has been digitally restored, it is very grainy and somewhat bland in color compared with the new works before and after it.
"In some ways I wish it were (less grainy), but on the other hand, it is what it is, and it's a miracle that it looks that good in certain ways," Disney said. "I think partly the preservationist instinct in us kind of makes us not try to overly clean it as we probably could. I think it has to show its age a little bit, kind of a respect for the people who made it."
Disney would not disclose his budget. "I will tell you that it came out for what we all think is a very reasonable amount." He said rumored figures are extremely high but guessed that "Fantasia 2000" cost "quite a lot less" than the original when the figures are adjusted for inflation. One economist projected that the 1940 budget would be worth about $43 million today, which would make "Fantasia 2000" a bargain compared with those recent summertime features.
It seems the honchos at Walt Disney Pictures, reputed for mapping out entire marketing strategies for a film before shooting a frame, are flying by the seat of their pants on "Fantasia 2000," adopting the IMAX concept as almost an afterthought and uncertain about when it will be released in 35mm and home versions. It echoes Walt's early practice of do good work and hope it sells, an approach that sometimes drove his business-minded brother to distraction.
What would the brothers Disney say about "Fantasia 2000"?
"You just would hope they like it," said their son and nephew. "I think they both would be pleased that we've done what we've done because I think what we've done is good work.
"Walt, I'm sure, would have had ideas to fix something," he added with a chuckle. "You could not get anything past Walt without him fixing something. The mystery always was what would he fix and what would he not bother to fix.