Wednesday, June 27, 2007

More End Of Cheapquels

A friend said to me the other day that I must be happy about the changing scene at Disney Toon studios, with Lasseter and Catmull hammering the final nail in the coffin regarding the Disney Cheapquels.
Believe me, I'm thrilled.
But there is a sad side to this as well...about what could have been.
The exciting thing about the Cheapquels is that they generated a tremendous amount of money for the company...it could have shown the way to produce exciting fresh quality driven product by way of DVD to homes around the world.
They really didn't have to be Cheapquels after all.
If the Disney Company had seen the light, they could have made great animated motion pictures with their Direct To Video Distribution channels. Instead, they chose the wrong people to head up the division and wasted a whole lot of money. One nameless person at Disney Toon Studios told me that the Cheapquels weren't all that cheap to produce! One of these pictures cost about $20 million dollars in story alone because someone of top was very insecure and demanded changes in story and in personnel.
Think about it...$20 million bucks...down the tubes.
I know several people who could have delivered two great movies for that amount and they still wouldn't be considered cheapquels.