For those that look at the trailer and wonder.... Why?... Well here's Rog with the skinny...
Roger Thornhill reporting with some KING AND I dirt and blame to spread around...
True blame for the debacle known as THE KING AND I that will be foisted upon an unsuspecting American audience rest not with Warner Bros but rather with the Rogers and Hammerstein estate executers. Here's the scoop: About three years ago an animation director friend of mine wanted passionately to do the KING AND I (he'd been developing is for several years). He had tons of INCREDIBLE artwork that he had been creating along with his own adapted script, totally faithful to R&H's original musical. Having seen the artwork, it was incredible and would have put Disney to shame. So, two years ago he flew out to NYC to meet with the R&H people and pitch his idea. They loved it and were excited that someone of his background wanted to do this. My friend knew Rankin and Bass had the rights to the R&H catalog, but nobody could ink a frame without the estates approval. At that time there was no other movement on the KING AND I front. Low and behold, about 3 or 4 months later deep pocketed Warner Bros. and Morgan Creek productions announce they acquired the rights to an animated KING AND I. Adding further insult to injury, they were going to subcontract the project to RICH ANIMATION, the guilty party foisting all those horrible Saturday moring quality feature releases like Swan Princess and its sequel.
Essentially the R&H people sold their soul for the big dollar payoff and Morgan Creek and WB figured they could do a low budget feature and make a killing from name recognition. They know well and good what they could have had, albeit from an independent production, but they opted for the big dollars instead.
So, the blame should go as follows:
First to the Rogers and Hammerstein estate for selling out, when they had a potential alternative. Second, to Warner Bros/Morgan Creek for opting to subcontract to Rich Animation instead of using the Warner Bros Animation facility and crew Third to Rich Animation for doing such an incredibly poor job. I haven't seen the whole film but I did see a lot of production artwork and the trailer several times. While the production my friend would have undertaken would have half the budget( RICH had about 20 Million I understand) , the quality of one's art direction (character design and BG design) need not be affected by the budget. Paper and pencils don't change with the budget. Lastly back to Warner Bros. for going ahead and releasing the film theatrically instead of doing the honorable thing and burying it.
R-O-T
