What Went Wrong: Treasure Planet
By Shalimar Sahota
November 24, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Treasure Planet is a crazy adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. Disney had originally adapted Stevenson’s story back in 1950, their first live-action feature film (in Technicolor kids). Treasure Planet transports the story into a sci-fi setting and is kinda Steampunk-like, reminding me a lot of Sega’s Skies of Arcadia.
Jim Hawkins (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has grown up reading tales about the legendary Captain Flint, a pirate who would raid passing ships only to store his gold on Treasure Planet. Years later, Jim is helping his mother Sarah (Laurie Metcalf) run an inn and trying to avoid getting into trouble while solar surfing. One day a spaceship crashes outside, with the dying alien warning Jim to “beware the cyborg.” Before passing he gives Jim a strange-looking golden sphere, which just so happens to be a map to the fabled Treasure Planet. Along with his mother’s friend Dr. Delbert Doppler (David Hyde Pierce), they commission a ship and assign Captain Amelia (Emma Thompson) to lead their adventure. Jim is sent to work in the kitchen alongside John Silver (Brian Murry), a cook who also happens to be a cyborg.
One of the most interesting things about Treasure Planet is that Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, the duo behind the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, have a story credit. They revealed that they did a draft of the screenplay for directors Ron Clemens and John Musker right after they had finished Aladdin, but it was put on the back burner. The film didn’t really get into full swing till mid-1997, with animation starting in 2000. The initial teaser trailer showcased flying sailing ships and Jim solar surfing but didn’t really explain the story. With the second theatrical trailer, Disney appeared to be selling something that could be an animated sci-fi epic.
Treasure Planet accumulated a "why-the hell-is-this-costing" $140 million production budget and opened during the Thanksgiving weekend in the US on Wednesday, November 27, 2002. It opened at #4, with a disappointing five-day weekend gross of $16.5 million (its three day gross was $12.08 million). It was the same weekend that Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets had moved back up to the top spot in its third week. Treasure Planet managed just $38.1 million at the US box office. To really rub it in, it failed to outgross the likes of Disney’s The Fox and The Hound, Oliver and Company, and Basil: The Great Mouse Detective domestically, all of which were released in the 1980s! It fared a little better overseas, enjoying a lot of success in France and the UK, as its foreign box office totalled $71.4 million. With a worldwide gross of a little over $105 million, Treasure Planet became one of Disney’s biggest flops.
It’s a little difficult trying to work out why Treasure Planet failed to connect with audiences. “Maybe we didn't do a good enough job to entice an audience to want to come,” said Disney’s Chairman at the time, Richard Cook. He felt that maybe the film was, “too serious and earnest in the marketing,” and that “maybe we should have stressed other elements to make it fun and exciting.” However, the marketing for the film (rumored to have cost an additional $40 million) was overshadowed by commercials for the boy wizard as Disney underestimated just how big a franchise Harry Potter would become.
Part of the film’s downfall is attributed to suffering under the weight of already released family friendly fare such as Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Disney’s own The Santa Clause II, both of which were in their third and fifth weekends respectively and still managed to outgross Treasure Planet upon its opening weekend. Thinking about it, positioning their film three weeks after the release of Chamber of Secrets actually wasn’t that bad a move, just an unfortunate one.
The film’s target audience of young children and teens probably had no idea what Treasure Planet actually was. It looked more like an original film (not really a bad thing) and in some cases only their parents would work out the connection to Treasure Island. The youngsters were more likely to purchase tickets on something they were already aware of, hence the popularity of Harry Potter and The Santa Clause sequel during that weekend. I also wouldn’t rule out that those who did see the film were most probably swayed by the Disney brand more than anything.
A theory was going around that Disney purposely mishandled the release of Treasure Planet, hoping that it would bomb. That way they could use it as an excuse to finally stop working on traditionally animated films in favour of computer animated films, as well as laying off hundreds of staff. Personally I find it hard to believe that Disney would spend so much money with the intention of fast tracking the death of hand drawn animation.
The rise of computer animated films during this period has been noted, with traditional hand drawn animation slowly starting to wane. Treasure Planet does feature a mixture of both, though it certainly doesn’t look like a film that cost over $100 million. While the target audience would be lured by cutting edge computer animation, Disney did prove that it shouldn’t really matter, after Lilo & Stitch (which had one of the best marketing campaigns for any Disney film) turned out to be a runway success for them earlier that year. Disney was apparently surprised with an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, which may have felt like it was offered out of pity more than merit, but it certainly wasn’t the most competitive category that year.
Most critics appeared to enjoy the film, but reviews seemed to have a "good, but not great" vibe, which I agree with. There’s a lot crammed into those 90 minutes, but not enough to fully develop the supporting characters (there’s not enough Captain Amelia). It even has time for a soggy midsection as Jim and John Silver bond to the sounds of John Rzeznik’s ‘I’m Still Here.’ It takes a star going supernova and the death of Captain Amelia’s first mate, Mr. Arrow, to inject a bit of excitement back into the film.
On the whole, mainstream sci-fi animation is a dicey genre and audiences have avoided the likes of Final Fantasy, Titan A.E., Astro Boy, and as we’ve seen more recently, Mars Needs Moms. Robots, Monsters vs Aliens and WALL-E would be the main exceptions, though it’s probably down to those films being much more comedic and less serious.
Given the success Disney recently had with The Lion King, they’re clearly looking at their back catalogue for their next three-dimensional make over and personally I think Treasure Planet is ripe for a 3D re-release (there are some moments that would work quite well converted in the format). Timing may be partially to blame for its low returns; not just the eventual release date, but maybe a sci-fi interpretation of Treasure Island was a little ahead of its time? However, serious animated sci-fi (which excels in Anime) just isn’t a big enough draw for mainstream audiences.