The last few years have seen several franchises dipping into new forms of animation, some with more success than others. However, just like Dreamworks’ return to the Shrek franchise has resulted in differing opinions over the new look of the classic characters, it seems like many Disney favorites could look a little different in the future, according to Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Chief Creative Officer Jared Bush.
Now one really likes to see things change, which is why so many belated revivals and reboots bring with them a lot of criticism over aesthetic changes. This is particularly true of changing animation styles, which have evolved over the last hundred years from hand-drawn cell art to computer-generated worlds that would have been impossible 40 years ago. During an appearance on The Town podcast with Matt Belloni, Bush admitted that he could see animation at Disney “evolving” again in the near future.
“Those things can change quite a lot, and that’s something I’m very excited about. Over the next… even the next five years, there’s going to be a really exciting evolution in the way that our movies look. I think people are excited about that.”
Some would probably disagree on that matter. It is impossible to stop the march of change in the movie industry, and animation techniques are no exception. When asked specifically if Disney could lean into some anime-style films, Bush said:
“Oh well, for sure. I mean, so many of our artists here are really inspired by anime. Obviously, [Hayao] Miyazaki’s work is something that I study myself. I think when people hear anime, it means a lot of different things. It’s a medium, just the same way that CG animation is a medium. And so I think there’s a lot of different ways to tell stories in my experience. A lot of the times, anime is either 2D artist or a very specific way of doing things. That’s not exactly the way that we do things. That said, inspired by anime is something different, and that’s something that we’re looking to the next several years of how we tell stories and the visual style of our stories.”
While many studios have been diving into some unique and innovative animation styles, such as Sony with the Spider-Verse movies, or Paramount’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Disney has been playing it relatively safe for many years now.
Moving from classic animation to CGI was really the last big change for Walt Disney Animation in the mid-2000s, and they have stuck with a similar look in many of their movies ever since. This has seen them go through movies like Tangled, Frozen, Encanto, Wish, and last year’s Zootopia 2 – which was directed by Bush – with an instantly recognizable style of character design and animation. This will continue with November’s Hexed and next year’s Frozen 3.
While promoting Zootopia 2, Bush previously hinted that the next original Walt Disney Animations Studios release after Frozen 3 will be “very different” from anything Disney has done in the past, and will not feature “a human world.” Exactly what this new animation style will look like is currently unknown, but it seems that after two decades, Disney is looking to shake up the world of animation again as it has so many times in the past, and this will likely begin with the unnamed 2028 release.
