A headstrong Russian princess will try to win your heart this week: Fox Animation Studios is releasing its first cartoon feature, Anastasia. Like Disney Studios' best-loved hits, the movie features a beautiful heroine, a devilish villain, cute animal sidekicks, catchy songs, a plot that rewrites history and an all-star cast doing voices. Fox wants to prove that a cartoon movie doesn't have to come from Disney in order to be a winner with kids.
The movie, which opens November 21, is based on the true story of a royal princess who disappeared in the 1917 revolution in Russia. The partly computer-animated backgrounds of great cities and snowy landscapes are breathtaking. Anastasia herself is a smart, lovable heroine.
But it takes more than gorgeous cartooning and good storytelling to make a hit animated movie these days. Will kids and parents buy Anastasia toys, games and videos too? Will they go see the movie more than once? Will Fox's film sell as many action figures and fast-food meals as The Little Mermaid or Aladdin? Anastasia's producers, who spent about $53 million making the movie, have their fingers crossed.
"I really hope it will compete with the best Disney pictures," says Fox movie chief Bill Mechanic.
The company that has ruled the animation kingdom for 60 years does not plan to sit still while a little princess grabs for the cartoon-movie throne. Disney will try to lure kids away from Anastasia this month. Its new Robin Williams movie, Flubber, and 1989's The Little Mermaid will compete against Fox's film in theaters.
"Are we going to make it easy for them? No," says Disney movie group chairman Richard Cook. "Are we going to compete? You bet!" Don't be fooled by the pretty songs and scenery. This is war.
How A Mouse Became A Giant
It all started in 1937, with a movie about a fair-skinned beauty and seven short guys. The first movie-length cartoon was Walt Disney's 82-minute Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The animated musical delighted audiences all over the world.
Disney went on to make more than 30 animated features and had little competition. The company has sold millions of dollars' worth of toys, games, clothes and videos based on its popular characters. The Lion King (1994) is the most successful cartoon of all time. Ticket sales and products have earned about $1 billion worldwide. Of the top 20 best-selling videos ever, 13 are Disney cartoons, including Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and Pocahontas.
Rivals Are Ready To Rumble!
After watching Disney grow rich on its feature toons, other moviemakers are itching to get in on the action. After
Anastasia, Fox will release the animated Planet Ice in 1998.
DreamWorks is another studio with animated ambitions. Partly owned by former Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks will release Prince of Egypt, an animated movie based on the Bible's story of Moses. Meanwhile, Paramount, which owns Nickelodeon, is working on a movie based on its popular Rugrats series.
Warner Bros. studios (which is owned by the same company that publishes TIME FOR KIDS) has already entered the war with 1996's partly animated Space Jam. It made $90 million from ticket sales--the most for any non-Disney cartoon. Next May, Warner Bros. will release The Quest for Camelot, about a girl in the days of King Arthur.
Warner Bros. boss Bob Daly thinks it's time that studios other than Disney get a shot at the animation business. "We're rooting for Anastasia," he says. "It would be great for the entire industry if a non-Disney animated film became a hit."
But the upcoming flood of cartoons may be too much of a good thing. Even Disney's blockbusters have been making less money lately. This year's Hercules earned less than a third of what The Lion King did three years ago. Could it be that audiences are getting burned out on animation? If so, that's bad news for both Disney and its rivals.
Or perhaps it's a signal that it is time to change the Disney cartoon formula. "Very few animated features have tried something original and unique," says John Canemaker, an expert on cartoon history. Anastasia is basically a Disney film, brought to you by a Fox instead of a mouse. Maybe, just maybe, that's not the way to beat Disney at its own game.
The Real Princess: Anastasia Romanov
The real-life Anastasia was a blue-eyed, impish Russian princess, much like the one in the movie. Her life story differs from the cartoon version, but it's every bit as exciting.
Anastasia was born in 1901, the fourth daughter of Russia's royal ruler, Czar (zahr) Nicholas Romanov, and his wife Alexandra. Anastasia grew up in marbled, mirrored grand palaces. She, her sisters and her younger brother Alexei studied Russian, French, German and English. They spent summers at a fancy home on the Baltic Sea. Anastasia amused her family with hilarious imitations of her father's important visitors.
In 1917 a revolution swept Russia. People no longer wanted to be ruled by a Czar. Nicholas had to give up his throne. The Romanovs became prisoners. In 1918 soldiers were ordered to shoot the royal family.
But was that really the end of the Romanovs? There were rumors that some had escaped. In 1920 a woman in Germany claimed to be Anastasia. Some believed her, but medical tests later proved that she was not a Romanov. In 1991 the family's bones were found in Russia. But the remains of Anastasia and Alexei were missing. Could they have escaped and lived their lives in hiding? We may never know.