Year: 1985
Director: Ted Berman
Country: US
Language: English
Based on the fantasy series The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander The Black Cauldron was a commercial failure for Disney for many reasons. The jamming together of two epic novels into a 90 minute feature was too much content in far too little of time. It's the opposite of the approach taken today where one novel (The Hobbit) is spread over three films. I can't recall if a fantasy sword and Sandal epic has ever done well under the House of Mouse.
A young boy and a bunch of misfit friends embark on a quest to find a dark magic item of ultimate power before a diabolical tyrant can.
The Black Cauldron is ambitious and probably the farthest Disney has ever gone into darker territory, but you can tell the film has reservations because of it's broody content. Known by many as "the film Disney tried to bury", head executives were quite worried that the content would alienate its viewers and thus cut many completed scenes just before release and a home video release would be withheld from the public for many years.
This is a shame because the film took over 12 years to make, 5 years of actual production, and cost over $25 million. Over 1,165 different hues and colors were used, and 34 miles of film stock was utilized.Some of the edits were due to wanting to avoid a PG-13 or R rating, but at least a few minutes of cuts were due to a mistake in understanding between editor and producer.
Disastrous test screenings led to children crying about having seen the un-dead. Black Cauldron marked the first time since Snow White that scenes had to be edited in post-production, which is extremely difficult to do for an animated film. Ultimately because of the cuts the film's tone changes wildly and the animation can greatly differ throughout its run-time. The "finished" version of the Black Cauldron is a bit of a mess that doesn't pay off. This picture should not have been released.
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