Tangled

Rapunzel is an upcoming American animated film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and starring Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi, and will be the 50th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics, planned for release on November 24, 2010 in Newy York City and Los Angeles, followed by a national release in December of that year. The story is based on the classic German fairy tale Rapunzel by the Brothers Grimm.

Plot
Doeri Welch-Greiner, the production manager for the movie, says that "The original version was that a girl got pulled from the modern world and replaced Rapunzel (played by Mandy Moore), and Rapunzel got turned into a squirrel. But we’re on a clearer, more classic fairy-tale sort of track right now with Dean Wellins as co-director; he was one of the story guys on Iron Giant and a Disney animator for a long time. It really plays on the mystery of the girl in the tower, and I think it’s really going to be great with Dean’s story sense and sense of staging, and the artistry that Glen brings to it, we hope we can bring the artistry of the movie to a different place."

Keane also promises that he’s going back to Rapunzel’s literary origins to do a traditional, character-driven fairy tale that speaks to a modern audience. “It’s a story of the need for each person to become who they are supposed to be and for a parent to set them free so they can become that. It will be a musical and a comedy and have a lot of heart and sincerity. I think that’s what Disney needs to do right now. No one else can do it. We should not be embarrassed or make excuses for doing a fairy tale."

At the D23 convention in Anaheim California on September 2009, Disney Animation creative head John Lasseter explained that the film has a lot of "girl power." This new interpretation of Rapunzel will be a more independent princess, and she uses her 70-foot-long hair for a variety of purposes, such as a whip, or a ladder.

Confirmed Cast

 * Rapunzel – Mandy Moore
 * Flynn Ryder – Zachary Levi
 * Madame Gothel – Donna Murphy
 * Narrator – Kevin Linehan
 * Grandma Claire – Pam Hyatt
 * Young Flynn Ryder – Matthew Gray Gubler
 * Young Rapunzel – Erin Fitzgerald
 * Mother Amy – Carolyn Lawrence
 * Grandpa Franklin – Peter Sallis
 * Father Sam – David Schwimmer
 * Muffin Man – Jim Cummings
 * Darker the Warlock – Kevin Michael Richardson
 * Uncle Jordan – John Goodman
 * Flynn's brother – Derek Stephen Prince
 * Rapunzel's sister – Edie Mirman
 * Bill McKnight – David Cross
 * Professor "Timothy" Boomerang – Jason Alexander
 * Molly McKnight – Susan Sheridan
 * Aunt Sally – Carol Burnett

Technical details
The movie's visual style will be based on the painting "The Swing", by the French Rococo artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Because director Glen Keane wanted this to be an animated movie that looked and felt like a traditional hand-drawn Disney Classic in 3D, he first had a seminar called "The Best of Both Worlds", where he, with fifty Disney animators (CGI artists and traditional artists), focused on the pluses and minuses of each style. Because of advancements in computer technology, many basic principles of animation used in traditional animated movies but which have been absent in CGI films due to technical limitations are now becoming possible also in this field of animation, where they will be used together with the potential offered by CGI. Keane has stated numerous times that he is trying to make the computer "bend its knee to the artist" instead of having the computer dictate the artistic style and look of the film. By making the computer become as "pliable as the pencil," Keane's vision of a "three dimensional drawing" seems within reach, with the artist controlling the technology. Because many of the techniques and tools that were required to give the film the quality Keane demanded of it didn't exist when the project was started, WDFA had to make them on their own.

To create the impression of a drawing, Non-photorealistic rendering is going to be used, making the surface look like it is painted but still containing depth and dimensions.

The Alan Menken bio on the Sister Act Musical website reveals that he and lyricist Glenn Slater are now providing songs for this musical. According to a recent interview with Menken, the style of the music is planned to be more 1960's rock.

Animation
The film will be made in CGI though Rapunzel will resemble traditional oil paintings on canvas: "There’s no photoreal hair. I want luscious hair, and we are inventing new ways of doing that. I want to bring the warmth and intuitive feel of hand-drawn to CGI. "For inspiration, Keane and his animators are referencing a painting by French Rococo artist Jean-Honore Fragonard, The Swing, applying a certain richness that they have never attained in animation before." "A fairy tale world has to feel romantic and lush. So we were able to duplicate the shot with the girl on the swing in 3D, to do a dimensional tree where the leaves turn, but it still feels like it has calories if you look at it too long. Very painterly. "The next step was to do an animated human character: to get a softness, a feel of blood in the veins. I want skin moving across bone and tendon and there’s a subtlety to this. The thing is, I don’t want realism. "Kyle Strawitz really helped me start to believe that the things I wanted to see were possible… that you could move in a Disney painterly world. He took the house from Snow White and built it and painted it so that it looked like a flat painting that suddenly started to move, and it had dimension and kept all of the soft, round curves of the brushstrokes of watercolor. Kyle helped us get that Fragonard look of that girl on the swing… We are using subsurface scattering and global illumination and all of the latest techniques to pull off convincing human characters and rich environments." One of the main ambitions of the makers of Rapunzel is to create movements that are just as soft and fluid as of that in the old Disney Classics.

Schedule

 * On April 12, 2007 it was revealed Annie-nominated animator and story artist Dean Wellins will be co-directing the film alongside Glen Keane.
 * On October 9, 2008, it was reported Glen Keane and Dean Wellins would be stepping down as directors and would be replaced by a new team of Byron Howard and Nathan Greno, director and storyboard director of 2008's Bolt. Keane would stay on as the Executive Producer and Wellins has moved onto developing other short films and feature films.