Over the Moon Director Still Heartbroken Over Treasure Planet’s Failure

Glen Keane is a legend in Disney animation, and he's teamed up with Netflix to bring us Over the Moon. While Keane has worked on several Disney films, one project still on his mind if Treasure Planet, a cult classic today, but a financial loss when it came out in 2002.

Talking to Vulture, Keane was asked which of his characters he thinks has gone underappreciated, and he mentions John Silver from the Treasure Planet film. He says:

"Yeah, yeah, definitely. Silver in Treasure Planet. I mean, that guy was so true to my growing up as a teenager. I knew somebody — my coach in football, this guy, Micky Ryan — who had the same speech that Silver gave to Jim Hawkins: "Someday I'm going to see the light shining on him and off you." I lived that. I put my heart and soul into creating that guy. And also just the connection of CG and hand-drawn blended into one character; I just felt like this is defining everything of who I am as an animator — the heart, the passion, the humor, the weight. Everything about him."

Though Treasure Planet did fail in the box office, it was said that it had something to do with studio politics; which Keane actually confirms in the interview. He says:

"… to see it sacrificed in a political battle that went on between [Disney head] Michael [Eisner] and [director] Roy [Clements] at that time, where [the film] was written off as a loss after, I think, almost two weeks. No one went to see it. I have to say, it's one of the most beautifully animated films. There was this authenticity to Silver that I thought was really remarkable. I loved animating with John Ripa on the same animation desk at the same time, doing tag-team animation of Silver and Jim Hawkins. I'd never done anything like that. It was so real and spontaneous. It was like improv, what we were doing on that film."

Even if the movie didn't succeed at the box office, Treasure Planet has grown to become a cult classic among 90s kids, and it is one of the better films to come out of the studio post-Renaissance. If anything, fans are hoping Treasure Planet is what gets the live-action treatment soon—much like another Disney film, Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

For now, you can catch Keane's Over the Moon now streaming on Netflix.

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