1953’s Peter Pan is among the true classics of the studio — a superbly animated adaptation of the 1904 play that canonized the story for generations. The film is just not with out faults — the depiction of the story’s Native American characters, controversial in most iterations, is extremely offensive within the movie, and the segments together with them have aged extremely poorly — however the film is essentially nicely remembered regardless of this, and stays an fascinating watch even 70 years after its preliminary launch. Nonetheless, regardless of sitting as Disney’s 18th animated launch, it was initially deliberate to be the second feature-length manufacturing by the corporate, instantly after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The lengthy story of growth hell that brought on this shift is considered one of rights tussles, adjustments in inventive course, and even warfare. The truth that the film was ever made in any respect is one thing of a miracle worthy of some fairy mud of its personal.
Peter Pan stands out amongst Disney animation of the time as a result of it’s not primarily based on a public-domain fairy story versus different movies like Snow White, Sleeping Magnificence, and Cinderella. Disney has had some nice releases in that vein, however engaged on a narrative with a set writer produces an enormous drawback: rights. Whereas tales like Little Crimson Using Hood are sometimes attributed to sure writers who popularized the tales, as folks tales, they don’t have a identified authentic writer and thus can’t be copyrighted. Disney itself has influenced copyright legal guidelines in america considerably to permit themselves to carry onto tales for much longer — however ultimately, inventive properties and tales do return to the general public area, with latest examples together with the Sherlock Holmes tales and the unique Winnie the Pooh books (the latter of which has result in some “fascinating” outcomes). Sadly for Disney, on the time that the corporate wished to adapt Peter Pan, it was nonetheless in non-public fingers — although curiously, it wasn’t within the fingers of the unique creator.
The unique creator of Peter Pan was Scottish novelist and playwright J.M. Barrie who (much like Alice in Wonderland’s creator Lewis Carroll) conceived of the character to entertain two younger boys that he was acquainted with. He would later use the character in a play he wrote and in 1911, would then flip that play into the e book Peter and Wendy. One would possibly assume then that Disney would solely have to buy the rights from Barrie to provide the movie, however a number of years earlier than they sought to start manufacturing, Barrie had bequeathed these rights to the Nice Ormond Road Hospital for Sick Kids in London to make sure that the hospital would all the time have funding. One would possibly subsequent assume that Disney might merely buy the rights from the hospital, however sadly, they had been a number of years too late; the rights had been additionally held by Paramount Photos, who had launched the unique silent movie model of Peter Pan in 1924 (which enjoyable reality: stays the best rated Peter Pan adaptation based on Rotten Tomatoes). With the rights up within the air, the studio started a prolonged collection of negotiations that lastly resulted in 1939, 4 years after Disney had first expressed curiosity in growing the property.
Nonetheless, now that Disney had permission from the hospital and had bought the rights from Paramount, certainly growth might start instantly, proper? Effectively, sadly, that’s not the one factor that occurred in 1939.
In September of 1939, World Conflict II formally started, and two years later in December 1941, america formally entered the battle. Instantly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Burbank Walt Disney Studios lot grew to become occupied by over 500 troopers — not by enemy combatants, however by American GIs. The Disney Burbank studio was close by an plane growth plant, and the troopers stationed to protect it took up residence within the studio. A lot of the studio’s house was repurposed, with sound levels and parking heaps transformed into refueling stations and ammo depots. This stays the one time an American navy pressure has occupied a Hollywood movie studio. Regardless of the occupation, the studio continued its pre-production on numerous movie tasks, together with Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland. Quickly after the occupation started, nevertheless, Walt Disney was approached by the US authorities with a request: for the studio to make use of its animation pressure to provide propaganda movies for the warfare effort.
Walt took the deal, not solely due to his self-proclaimed staunch patriotism however as a result of the studio was already in dire monetary straits. Their earlier movies Fantasia and Pinocchio had considerably elevated budgets in comparison with Snow White and, regardless of relative essential acclaim, had been immense field workplace bombs (partially because of the lack of ability to market abroad for the latter). Shortly earlier than the US entered the warfare, the studio had additionally been going by means of intense inner strife, with animators occurring strike for months over lack of credit score and pay disputes. The US authorities paid nicely for the propaganda shorts, which allowed for the studio to stay open – with out the fee from these items, the studio won’t have survived this era of monetary free fall. Whereas different movies’ growth continued on throughout this era, pre-production on each Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan was largely shelved, solely restarting correct growth as soon as the warfare had ceased.
By 1947, Disney was lastly financially sound sufficient to begin work on main new tasks. Throughout this time, three tasks had been floating round as to probably be chosen for growth: the beforehand shelved Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, and Cinderella. The issue was that after a few of their extra uncommon movies had produced wonderful essential responses however poor industrial outcomes, the studio trended in the direction of tasks that might be thought of protected bets. In a state of affairs that feels unusually much like the present standing of modern-day Disney, somewhat than put cash in the direction of new tasks, they as a substitute wished to recapture the success of their earlier days.
Of the three tasks, Cinderella had probably the most in frequent with the studio’s largest monetary success ever, Snow White. As such, the brand new venture was greenlit and Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland had been shelved — for the third time. This is able to be the ultimate roadblock for the venture, lastly taken off the cabinets in 1949 to formally start manufacturing the place, fortunately, no main shake-ups within the firm would threaten it once more. The movie would lastly be launched in 1953, 18 years after Walt Disney had initially expressed curiosity in adapting the story. Fortunately regardless of worries concerning the movie being a monetary failure à la Pinnochio, Peter Pan was a monetary success, producing an $84 million field workplace on a $4 million funds.