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by Animats 1368 days ago
Disney used to have an official Crap Sequels Division: DisneyToons. Wikipedia has a list of their direct-to-DVD movies, which could usually found at the bargain bin near the checkout counter.[1] When Disney acquired Pixar in 2006, somehow John Lassiter ended up in charge of Disneytoons. He didn't like running the crap sequels business. After a decade of cancellations and missteps, DisneyToons was shut down in 2018 and the animators were laid off.

Disneytoons movies only cost about $15M to make and usually made over $100M.

Dumbo (2019) was not a Disneytoons movie. It cost $170 million to make. The problem Disney now faces is that classic low-end animation won't sell, and photorealistic with live action is very expensive to produce. So they now lack a low-end product line.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disneytoon_Studios

1 comments

I would buy classic low-end animation if it was a good story! I assumed that was what was too expensive to produce. Hand-drawn.