First Bluth-animated film since 2000
In the ’80s, Don Bluth was almost single-handedly the biggest competition Disney had in the animation industry. When he wasn’t pumping out amazing films like An American Tail, All Dogs go to Heaven, and The Land Before Time, he was also behind the creation of laserdisc games Space Ace and Dragon’s Lair, the latter of which has been re-released on practically every device ever by now.
Unfortunately, Bluth retired from feature film animation after his studio was shut down following the release of Titan AE. He’s been involved with game development pretty consistently since then with his studio Square One Studios, and has also been involved in some theatre work too.
Now he and frequent collaboration partner Gary Goldman have announced they want to make a feature-length animated film based off of Dragon’s Lair, and have launched a Kickstarter to make it happen.
The Kickstarter is asking for $550,000, and at the time of writing has raised $45,000, to produce a short demo pitch containing recorded dialogue, storyboards, some animation for a part of the film’s script. Bluth and Goldman can take that taster to interested parties such as film studios and investors in the hopes of securing the funding to produce the full film, which they predict will cost somewhere around $70 million. It’s nice to see a Kickstarter campaign so explicitly explain that later funding will be needed (hey, Shenmue, pay attention) and exactly what this campaign will produce.
While I haven’t backed the Kickstarter, I am incredibly excited to see where this goes. Dragon’s Lair had some freaking fantastic action, but suffered a bit because of the technical limitations at the time. Seeing a film based off of what we got in the game is way too damn exciting for me, especially when the original creators of it are the ones behind the helm. Maybe this won’t be a video game film that sucks?
Not to mention the fact the guy behind some of the best animated films of the ’80s is coming back… here’s really hoping this one succeeds.
