25 Major Disney Movies That Were Cancelled Last Minute

Disney is like a machine constantly churning out new movies and animated adventures for the whole family to enjoy but for every finished production it feels like a handful were scrapped along the way oh yeah while many of the movies remain on the cutting room floor there are some that we all wish Disney didn't cancel check out the pitches and stories for sequels to beloved Disney classics modern-day movies until we almost got to see Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny on screen together again I have every confidence in you there was one moment in The Nightmare Before Christmas where we felt the film was destined for a sequel when Jack reaches all the holiday doors we would love to see Halloween infused with Thanksgiving more Easter and Disney planned to take us there back in 2001 when a sequel was penned the main issue Disney was going to move forward with an all CG production as opposed to another stop-motion movie Tim Burton eventually convinced a Disney to pull the plug but how great would it have been to see more Jack and Sally the stop-motion form would have been better but now the only sequels that were stuck with for The Nightmare Before Christmas are in video game form the Aladdin franchise got the trilogy treatment along with an 86 episode TV series yeah that's a whole lot of a vu but we cannot get enough imagine if Robin Williams returned and we got to enjoy and a lot in for although the story elements remain scarce the natural progression of things probably meant a lot in and Jazmyn were about to introduce a new princess or Prince into the world the Aladdin franchise had a lot of room for expansion while we won't ever get to see the animated Aladdin again at least to the live-action version of the movie is getting a sequel that diverts from return of Jafar and the king of Thebes I must have hit my head harder than I thought the whole Toy Story franchise has really branched out with some memorable Toy Story tunes Toy Story that time forgot now airs every holiday season while Toy Story of terror is quickly becoming a Halloween classic well we almost got another short animated hit entitled Toy Story tunes mythic rock no details were released about the short other than it was going to be around 20 minutes long and either debut on ABC or the reform network the short dropped off the map without any updates but Disney Plus is the ideal platform to bring it back on with a lamp life and forkie asks a question the shorts are a great way to focus on some of the supporting characters how many recess movies do we need the answer is yes with four official movies we almost got a fifth the recess movie entitled the first day of school the film would have followed all of our favourite characters - Gus's they navigate their first day in the fourth grade sure the plot may have been a little similar to the pilot of recess but we just could not get enough of TJ in the gang despite the tragic passing of Mikey's voice actor Jason Davis Disney Plus should consider some type of reboot or spin-off in the future and yes Disney Plus truly does seem to be the answer to all of these abandoned projects before Disney purchased Pixar and folded the company into one Pixar was a separate entity while Disney owned the rights to the characters Disney decided to create their own low-budget studio known as Studio seven along with an alternate Toy Story 3 the studio developed monsters Inc - lost and scary dice mean what actually sounds like a pretty decent idea Mike and Sulley go to visit boo on her birthday only to find her gone and missing the duo then gets stuck in the real world split up and must find a way to make up and get back to Metropolis once Disney purchased Pixar the movie was scrapped and we got monsters University instead if monsters Inc - did get released it probably would have thrown the old Pixar theory out of whack circle 7 wasn't just diving back into the world of monsters and toys they were going back to the sea as they developed Finding Nemo - no not finding dory Finding Nemo - a story where Marlin is the one who gets captured oh yeah Nemo finds out he has a long-lost brother another fish named Remy not the rat who managed to survive the Barracuda attack sure the other surviving brother would have taken a lot of emotion away from Nemo's origin story but we would love to see the family dynamics when Marlin has two sons to protect and look after either way the story was scrapped and finding Dory was made there's still time to bring Remy back into the fold if another aquatic adventure ever gets made Mulan has to be one of the most underrated Disney Classics the music the adventure Eddie Murphy's wisecracking dragon before he became a wisecracking donkey oh you've done it ma'am ma'am Mulan too may have been released too straight to video but the movie managed to really expand on the original and provides an epic romantic build between Mulan and Shang before the couple gets happily married while Mulan 2 is still in production Mulan 3 was being developed at the same time for reasons unknown the sequel was scrapped and we were left with just one sequel at least we have more Mulan in the form of the live-action version but moo shu will be missed so you get back to me on the job thing we've already seen a ton of elves battle in The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies but we almost got to enjoy a Disney version of the bottle with an adaptation of the short story known as king of the elves in a battle of elves versus trolls we would have seen some epic animation as man who lives a simple life suddenly finds himself thrust into the world of elves the action would have been great and we have to wonder if the film would have ended up being a musical even if it's not a movie the king of the elves would make a pretty epic ride at Disney World in the 90s and early 2000s Disney revisited a lot of their classics and released two straight to video sequels we got more Little Mermaid a Bambi sequel and a couple of extra Cinderella's well we also almost had a Dumbo to released the sequel was in development for a long time in Dumbo - even went through a detailed storyboard process the storyboards were released on the official Dumbo DVD release and after seeing them we wish we could see more the movie looked like a lot of fun and there are so many ways you can take a story about a flying elephant the best parties they would long before John Lasseter was making history with Pixar he was working on experimental Disney films including an adaptation of where the wild things are the 1983 short featured a scene with Max and his dog and had several CG elements composed in short the movie would have looked awesome we never got to see what any of the monster designs looked like but the smoochy animation and the blend of elements made us wish the movie was brought to life unfortunately Disney No longer has the rights to the book as Warner Brothers released a live-action version of the movie in 2009 the adaptation was well liked but flopped in theaters ending any chance of the Disney version anytime soon long before Marvel and DC heroes were mixing it up together on the big screen Who Framed Roger Rabbit created a shared universe that was unlike anything ever seen on film before Daffy Duck and Donald Duck had a piano battle Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny parachuted together we're talking about the innovated film Who Framed Roger Rabbit the movie was a huge hit and pop-culture sensation so it seemed like a sequel was inevitable two movies were planned Roger Rabbit - the toon platoon and where is Roger Rabbit unfortunately both got canceled and don't expect a reboot any time soon Ralph breaks the Internet pretty much provided the crossover content we craved while Disney wants to stay far away from Jessica Rabbit and her more mature image that contrasts the whole Disney Princess lifestyle one of the few Disney movies to get a sequel is 1995 s Hercules the animated film got its own series on the Disney Channel but Hercules was denied another big screen or straight-to-video sequel a sequel was being planned and entitled Hercules of the Trojan War the film would have expanded a Herc's relationship with Meg introduced to their daughter and sent Hercules off to war a battle we'll never get to see tying in more mythology would have been a great addition to the Hercules franchise but Disney skipped this one while giving us a sequel to Atlantis and brother Bear hey boo I'm too old to get mixed up in this stuff again there's nothing like a great New York City adventure and in 1991 we almost got one in the form of tiny the alligator the tail would have been based on the urban legend about alligators who live in New York City sewers well the legend would have been proven true as tiny grew to be the size of a large truck the film would have been a coming-of-age story but there's no word on if it was a musical or not with the ho-hum release of Oliver and company Disney decided to venture out of the city for a while and present more classic stories in the form of a Laden and Lion King while Pixar was busy making Bank with films like Toy Story and Monsters Inc Disney was struggling to find a foothold in the world of CG one of their attempts was the time-traveling story Meet the Robinsons the movie had an epic twist and a great message about family but a poor marketing campaign led to the film's failure at the box office while despite the low box office numbers DisneyToon Studios was ready for a sequel only the movie was scrapped because John Lasseter took over as chief creative officer in 2006 and didn't like how so many straight-to-video sequels were devaluing the brand despite making billions of dollars well the Meet the Robinsons sequel was the first one on the chopping block and it's unfortunate because there were so many ways the sequel could have taken us and speaking of the John Lasseter chopping block on another movie to get cut from the production list was a sequel to Chicken Little entitled Chicken Little the ugly duckling story we imagine the narrative was going to shift focus from invading aliens and focused on Little Mermaid's friend abby malar sure Chicken Little wasn't the best Disney movie but the animal lives were SAP in a similar way to Zootopia and provided a fun backdrop to follow various stories actually the characters would have made a great ensemble cartoon as opposed to standalone movies while Tim Burton's name is slapped all over the Nightmare Before Christmas a lot of credit is owed to Henry Selick the visionary director behind the movie and Disney wanted to bring Selleck back to direct another stop-motion adventure after the company purchased the rights to the graveyard book the film would have been Pixar's first venture into stop-motion and featured a lot of dark and haunting elements the older kids would eat up unfortunately the film fell into a developmental spiral Selleck dropped out of the production and we haven't heard any updates in years after playing a supporting role in Peter Pan and returned to Neverland Tinkerbell finally got her shining moment with the solo film simply titled Tinkerbell the movie was a straight-to-video success that helped launch the whole fairies franchise for the company six movies later and we've expanded on Tinker Bell's tail like we never thought we could imagine only one problem Disney pulled the plug on Tinker Bell 7 and locked the fairy dust away in the Disney Vault story issues were blamed for the cancellation but there were so many ways the movies could have gone including the first introduction to Peter Pan at some point Disney loves to put their own twist on classic tales like we saw with tangled but some stories are too hard to make a feature-length adaptation of case in point Disney's cancelled Jack and the Beanstalk out apt ation simply known as gigantic the movie would have featured a female giant that Jack goes on an adventure with we have to wonder if Disney's own adaptation of The BFG impacted the release of gigantic creative difficulties pushed to the release date multiple times and the movie was even hinted at through a fun Zootopia Easter egg even though the Disney tune planes franchise was just a cars ripoff the movies had a lot of heart and the sequel planes Fire and Rescue was far better than Cars 2 planes Fire and Rescue gave a lot of potential to the franchise and Disney planned on taking the movies even further up all the way to outer space yep planes in space was in development but in 2018 DisneyToon Studios was shut down effectively ending any chance of seeing this sequel take to the skies when Disney decided to make Jungle Book two decades after the sequel they were taking a huge risk and the movie paid off with a theatrical release so what was next Jungle Book theory of course but where was this third book gonna take us to the circus yeah just like madagascar 3 europe's most wanted Jungle Book 3 was supposed to feature Baloo and sheer Khan in the Russian circus after they were captured and sold while Mowgli would team up with some jungle friends to travel to Russia and save a button for the whole family there was no specific reason why the movie was cancelled but we could enjoy a new Baloo song any day way back in Disney's heyday the company had a lot to experiment with as they expanded the world of animation and thrilled crowds all over the world in 1946 development began on the Little People an animated live-action hybrid that would feature real-life people acting through a variety of animated scenes the project proved to be way too ambitious for Disney at the time it was rumored to follow the lives of leprechauns in Ireland but never went past the early production stage eventually Darby O'Gill and the little people was released in 1959 but it was a live-action film with no animation so it is a huge difference from the original idea both Fantasia movies have become classics for the way that they interweave animation and music so beautifully together at some point we will probably get a Fantasia 3 but in 2006 we were very close until the production got cancelled eventually all the plan shorts were released on their own but there's something special about watching them all together like attending a special concert experience with 4k televisions and advanced sound bars a new Fantasia would be perfect for home release for three years Disney and ABC provided us with a holiday film in the form of the prep and landing franchise which followed high-tech elves around the Christmas season the journey of these elves was set to continue with the release of prep and landing for in 2013 but the elves just quietly disappeared the production team was then put to work on Olaf's frozen adventure and we haven't heard from them since thankfully the prep and landing series could return at any point and now our holiday spirits wouldn't be up Pixar loves to explore all kinds of worlds and we get rewarded with some beautiful animation in the process while we should have gotten a beautiful look at nature with the production of Newt the story followed two rare newts who needed to meet and mate to keep their species alive the production was supposedly canceled due to too many similarities to Rio but that never stopped them before with production troubles on the good dinosaur at the same time we imagine newts creative problems were just a bit too much although we would love to see at least a little test animation 36 years after the original Aristocats we were supposed to get a sequel released in 2006 well the movie was scrapped as part of the big DisneyToon studios overhaul and Aristocats 2 is now history at least we have some story details for you the cats would have boarded a cruise ship where little Murray would have bonded with a male cat and love would have been in the air yeah so basically it's love boat but with cats who doesn't want to see that the film would have likely featured a ton of music and memorable songs just like the first movie at least give us the soundtrack to some of these unreleased movie songs okay let's hear from you guys now which one did you want to see the most personally expanding the time-traveling antics and Meet the Robinsons would have been fun which ones are you happy they cancel any others that we missed let us know in the comments below thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe to Screen Rant for more great content

Channel: Screen Rant

Views: 758,153

Rating: 4.8743286 out of 5

Keywords: Screen Rant, ScreenRant, Disney, animated projects, cancelled projects, Aladdin sequels, Toy Story sequels, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Disney movies, Meet the Robinsons, Nightmare Before Christmas, Monsters Inc, Recess, Finding Nemo, Mulan, Jungle Book, animated Disney movies, Pixar movies, disney+, pixar

Id: 2oqhtOuzTHs

Length: 15min 58sec (958 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 04 2020