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Remember When BOLT! Was Called AMERICAN DOG?

Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

Don’t cry for Chris Sanders.

After all, he’s apparently developing an animated film called CROOD AWAKENING that was written, in part, by the one and only John Cleese. So Sanders appears to be keeping busy in a very interesting way.

But if things had worked out differently, right about now, we’d be getting our first look at AMERICAN DOG, his follow-up to LILO & STITCH, a film that may have turned into an iconic Disney hit, but which started out as one of the more personal and experimental projects to ever make it out of their feature animation division.

I remember when Harry ran the first images from AMERICAN DOG in August of 2004. I loved that it didn’t look anything like the typical Disney film. Here’s one image in particular from that article that I loved:







Those are the three main characters in that version of the film: “A canine TV star, an oversized bunny, and a testy cat.”

We saw our first glimpse of footage almost a year later when one our spies went to Siggraph and sent us this clip, which may be silent but it still communicates a ton about the mood and the style of the proposed film.

So now here we are in a post-Pixar/Disney world, when many of the projects that were rumbling along as recently as two years ago have gone completely dormant, or in some cases, they’ve been radically overhauled.

Chris Sanders is gone. Off the film completely at this point. Out of Disney, too. In his place, Chris Williams (who shared story credit on MULAN and THE EMPEROR’S NEW GROOVE) will be directing the now-retitled BOLT!

If you check out the image below, you’ll see just how completely they’ve changed the feel of this one. Will it retain any of the character of AMERICAN DOG? Are these changes all for the better? We’ll have to wait until sometime next fall to find out.






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Reader Talkback

But...
by TheRealMoriarty
Dec 28th, 2007
12:50:31 AM
I hope
by Kingdaddy
Dec 28th, 2007
12:59:08 AM
BOLT looks terrible
by kgerm
Dec 28th, 2007
01:06:00 AM
Welcome back!
by Horace Cox
Dec 28th, 2007
01:10:02 AM
Fuck you all, Dreamworks is awesome!
by Proman1984
Dec 28th, 2007
01:26:19 AM
Ummm...
by TheRealMoriarty
Dec 28th, 2007
01:38:42 AM
Damn, what a shame
by TheDohDoh
Dec 28th, 2007
02:35:03 AM
This will TANK
by s8ntmark
Dec 28th, 2007
02:36:49 AM
proman1984 is
by frankenfickle
Dec 28th, 2007
02:57:18 AM
all the hoopla
by cdoggy
Dec 28th, 2007
03:11:59 AM
I'm confused
by Napoleon Park
Dec 28th, 2007
04:20:47 AM
new version looks familiar
by Napoleon Park
Dec 28th, 2007
04:24:30 AM
Boring
by kevinwillis.net
Dec 28th, 2007
05:01:11 AM
make a caption for that image
by palewook
Dec 28th, 2007
06:44:51 AM
the new stuff looks so boring
by harold_maude
Dec 28th, 2007
07:31:51 AM
if they would release "The Sweatbox" documentary
by Kennef
Dec 28th, 2007
07:42:09 AM
Chris Williams
by Series7
Dec 28th, 2007
08:01:13 AM
Also
by Series7
Dec 28th, 2007
08:05:29 AM
Mario
by Series7
Dec 28th, 2007
08:09:37 AM
So...
by Darkman
Dec 28th, 2007
08:19:56 AM
Darkman
by Series7
Dec 28th, 2007
09:04:55 AM
I'm not saying that EMPEROR is a good movie.
by Darkman
Dec 28th, 2007
09:52:11 AM
You know what?
by mukhtabi
Dec 28th, 2007
09:54:25 AM
Then you and I
by Series7
Dec 28th, 2007
09:56:19 AM
No I don't
by indyjonez100
Dec 28th, 2007
10:28:40 AM
Emperor was All Right; Mulan was Very Good
by kevinwillis.net
Dec 28th, 2007
10:42:56 AM
My guess
by paburrows
Dec 28th, 2007
11:15:12 AM
Obviously...
by Hellboy
Dec 28th, 2007
11:54:46 AM
sorry all you pretentious fans
by ArcadianDS
Dec 28th, 2007
11:58:43 AM
The first image...Dark, fuzzy, unfocused
by DocBosch
Dec 28th, 2007
12:25:38 PM
hmm
by Dollar Bird
Dec 28th, 2007
12:45:08 PM
love the clip
by I87D
Dec 28th, 2007
12:53:16 PM
Looks furry.
by Saluki
Dec 28th, 2007
12:59:14 PM
I wish there were better pics of the original...
by Rakafraker
Dec 28th, 2007
03:20:11 PM
Lilo and Stitch
by Oz J Thomas
Dec 28th, 2007
03:23:25 PM
BTW- Cleese...
by Rakafraker
Dec 28th, 2007
03:26:03 PM
Emporer's New Groove...
by DreadPirateRoberts
Dec 28th, 2007
04:57:28 PM
What was he thinking?
by mish87
Dec 28th, 2007
07:44:02 PM
Mori, of course I understand the point of the piece
by Proman1984
Dec 29th, 2007
12:10:16 AM
pixar owes me 6 billion dollars
by ironic_name
Dec 29th, 2007
12:43:12 AM
New Groove gets everything right that Shrek gets wrong
by half vader
Dec 29th, 2007
07:17:53 AM
the cat looks like the one in Miyazaki's Kiki movie
by half vader
Dec 29th, 2007
10:24:22 AM
Pixar
by Garbage
Dec 29th, 2007
02:05:20 PM
There is exactly one good DREAMWORKS animated film
by Cartagia
Dec 29th, 2007
04:41:28 PM
This is probably the best example...
by DanielKurland
Dec 29th, 2007
04:43:53 PM
Adding a fucking lightning bolt on him too...
by DanielKurland
Dec 29th, 2007
04:45:49 PM
Yawn... yet another movie I'll never see.
by Nate Champion
Dec 29th, 2007
04:52:19 PM
It's CATDOG!
by couP
Dec 29th, 2007
05:34:31 PM
CATDOG was just a brainless rip of Ren and Stimpy
by half vader
Dec 29th, 2007
05:47:36 PM
Are people forgetting about ANTZ?
by Bass Bastardson
Dec 30th, 2007
02:06:43 AM
No we were TRYING to forget about Antz
by half vader
Dec 30th, 2007
07:18:20 AM
Was hoping this was a THAT MAN BOLT remake
by Cruel_Kingdom
Dec 30th, 2007
05:43:36 PM
images no longer available
by Matthew Martinez
Dec 31st, 2007
04:22:54 PM
Uh...dozen of one...
by Tourist
Jan 2nd, 2008
12:30:03 AM

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