DISNEY, SULLIVAN STUDIOS PICK UP THE PACE : A CARTOON CORNUCOPIA IN THE CORPORATE PIPELINE

If the Walt Disney and Sullivan (“An American Tail”) studios can realize their ambitious schedules, cartoon fans may be seeing as many as three new, fully animated features a year, beginning in 1988.

The gap between films from both studios has averaged close to four years during the last decade, but in separate interviews recently (before the current voice-actors’ strike), executives at the rival companies announced major programs of feature production as enterprising as anything Walt Disney himself ever attempted.

Unlike Disney, neither of the men who are spearheading these animation drives has ever been an animator. Morris Sullivan, owner-president of Sullivan Studios, was the head of a successful financial consulting firm. Peter Schneider, vice president of feature-animation production at Walt Disney Pictures, has a background in theater and served as associate director of the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival.

These two currently control the top animation studios in America. Both Sullivan’s producer-director Don Bluth and his crew and the young Disney artists have been hailed as the heirs to the classic Disney animators. By contrast, recent animated features (“My Little Pony” and the Care Bears movies) have been done in limited animation, closer to Saturday-morning kidvid than to “Pinocchio.”

The two executives present a study in contrasts. A distinguished-looking man in his early 60s, Sullivan is impeccable in an elegant pin-striped suit; Schneider, who is in his early 30s, works in shirt-sleeves, with an open collar and loosened tie. Sullivan rests his hands on his desk, as if posing for a formal portrait; Schneider fidgets in an armchair, gesturing constantly. Sullivan seems to weigh each word carefully before pronouncing it; Schneider speaks in eager rushes, his voice rising enthusiastically.

Sullivan Studios Inc. produced Don Bluth’s “An American Tail” for Universal. Despite mixed reviews, the film has earned more than $46 million, breaking all box-office records for an animated feature. By the time “Tail” was released, Sullivan had reached an accord with the Irish Industrial Development Authority to shift production to Dublin, where the ink and paint work for the film had been done.

“It’s not feasible for us to do animation here,” Sullivan says. “Without Steven Spielberg’s interest, Universal would not have been agreeable to making ‘American Tail.’ As it was, they required an extremely tight budget ($9.3 million). Our costs couldn’t have been repeated if we’d have stayed in the United States. Most people who produce animation in the U.S. have moved some or all production offshore, most of it to the Orient. The reason is the constantly rising cost of animation in this country.”

Sullivan had no experience in animation or film production prior to meeting Bluth in early 1984. Bluth, who had produced “Banjo, the Woodpile Cat” and the laser-disc video games “Dragon’s Lair” and “Space Ace,” was then in bankruptcy due to the decline of the video arcade market.

Although in semi-retirement at the time, Sullivan felt the animators’ troubles were due to poor business and legal advice and “through no fault of their own.” He decided “to spend a little time helping them, then a little bit more time and a little bit more time, until now I’m spending 100% of my time, still trying to help them. My objective is to try and see that they are in a position to be able to afford to produce the quality animation they insist on.”

Sullivan established a large, ultramodern studio in Dublin, on the banks of the River Liffey. A staff of 220 is currently at work there on Bluth’s next picture for Spielberg, “The Land Before Time Began,” which they expect to complete early in 1988. Production is expected to begin on an untitled third feature in August, 1988.

In Dublin, about 90 Americans are training Irish artists in various aspects of studio animation production. Sullivan plans to increase the staff to 600 within two years and begin releasing two new animated features each year, “one every Christmas and one every summer.” He also intends to expand into live-action features and television production.

From Sullivan’s U.S. offices on the 11th floor of an ultramodern tower in Burbank, a visitor can just see the new Disney animation facility in Glendale, where Peter Schneider discussed the future of cartoons at that studio.

“There’s a real feeling here that animation is a good business to be in, both financially and artistically,” says Schneider. “Our mandate now is to turn out a new animated picture every year, to go along with two or three rereleases. Our goal is to have two pictures animating simultaneously. At the moment, we have them staggered correctly for a yearly releasing schedule. We had 18 animators and about 36 assistants eight months ago; we’ll probably have 30 animators and 60 assistants by the time we reach our peak.”

While Sullivan says that the contract with Spielberg’s Amblin Productions forbids describing the plot of “The Land Before Time Began,” Schneider has no qualms about discussing Disney’s coming features, which include “Oliver and the Dodger,” Dickens’ “Oliver Twist” with a canine cast, scheduled for summer, 1988. An adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” will follow in 1989 and either “Beauty and the Beast” or a sequel to “The Rescuers” (1977) in 1990.

“While we want to learn from the past, we want to make our own individual films now and hope we’re not ruining the Disney tradition,” Schneider says. “I think I’m safe in saying that for the last 20 years, there hasn’t been too much tradition: We’ve been coasting on a reputation.

“I think ‘The Great Mouse Detective’ (1986) was a very good first step toward regaining that tradition--with younger artists. ‘Oliver’ and ‘Little Mermaid’ will continue that step: We must take the time to train ourselves in the process of making movies and take some chances.”

Schneider describes “Oliver” as “a contemporary musical with ‘80s references.” The film features six original songs, and Jeffrey Hornaday (“A Chorus Line”) is devising choreography for the animated characters. The vocal cast, which includes Billy Joel, Bette Midler and Richard (Cheech) Marin, suggests a break with the wholesome Disney tradition.

“I think Walt was an innovator,” Schneider continues. “My gut reaction is that people have been trying to figure out what Walt would have done and tried to hold on to his tradition. I think Walt would have been the first person to say he had no tradition, other than excellence in storytelling and always pushing the frontiers of animation one step further. I think the challenge we have today is to find the excellence in storytelling again and to keep pushing the frontiers of animation as an art form--as opposed to looking back and trying to figure out how Walt would have done it.”

During the late ‘30s, Disney envisioned releasing one new animated feature every year. The outbreak of World War II and the initial box-office failures of “Pinocchio” and “Fantasia” derailed those plans.

Audiences will be waiting to see if either studio can succeed where Disney himself failed in maintaining both large-scale and top-quality animation production.