In 1937, exactly 86 years ago, Disney made history when it released “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. The production became the first feature-length animation in the history of world cinema, in addition to being considered the first to be made entirely in color.
The work marked the beginning of Disney Princesses, one of the most famous and profitable franchises ever launched. Despite the great success of the first animated title, the studio took exactly 13 years to release its second princess film, “Cinderella”, which only premiered in 1950.
The reason for the delay is due to one of humanity’s darkest conflicts, World War II. At that time, Disney launched military advertisements to encourage the population to defend their nation with appearances by characters such as Donald Duck, in addition to developing films for military training, insignia and even educational shorts.
During this period, as many of its employees were serving in the army, and there was no public interest in watching films due to the country’s situation, Disney reached the end of the confrontation with an accumulated debt of 4 million dollars, and was on the verge of bankruptcy. “Cinderella” was the animation that saved the studio, and today it has earned more than $263.6 million at the box office.
However, nine years after the release of the animation about Cinderella, Disney released the last princess film with the participation of its creator, Walt Disney: “Sleeping Beauty”.
The last princess
Based on the tale of Charles Perrault, released in 1697, the film about Princess Aurora had a total cost of approximately 6 million dollars, being the most expensive animated film at the time, generating beautiful reviews from film experts. Furthermore, the animation was nominated for an Oscar in 1960 in the category of Best Original Musical.
Still, not everything was rosy for “Sleeping Beauty”. Despite being praised by critics, the animation generated a certain loss for the studio upon its release due to the enormous investment, since, at the time, the production only grossed 5 million dollars at the box office, as reported by G1.
For this reason, Walt Disney decided that the studio would take a break from adapting children’s stories. A new princess film would only arrive 30 years later, in 1989, with “The Little Mermaid”. However, the legendary filmmaker was no longer present to watch the release of his new hit. Disney He died in December 1966, due to lung cancer.
Currently, “Sleeping Beauty” is considered one of Disney’s classics and, thanks to its re-releases, has accumulated more than 51 million dollars at the box office. In addition to this fact, it is worth mentioning that the plot gained two spin-offs based on Maleficent, the villain of the plot, entitled “Maléficent”, from 2014, and “Maléficent: A Mistress of Evil”, from 2019, both starring the actress Angelina Jolie.
Source: Recreio
