Chanticleer (partially found production material of cancelled Disney animated film; 1940s-mid 1960s)

Chanticleer duelling Poco Loco.

Status: Lost

Chanticleer was going to be a move based on the pre-World War 1 French play Chanticleer written by Edmund Rostland. It was in development from the 1940s up until the mid 1960s and never saw completion.

Plot

The film takes place on a Parisian farm in the late 1800s, much like the play, Chanticleer would have been the story of a vain rooster who had all the animals believing that his crowing was what brought up the sun each morning. Then a ruthless band of "Night Creatures" lead by a vicious fox who is named Reynard are planning to seize the animals on the farm for food. Under the guise of a traveling circus, the animals came to the farm and performed for the animals. This somehow caused them to lose faith in Chanticleer and now want Reynard to lead them instead of Chanticleer.

In another scene, a beautiful Pheasant who was new on the farm had constantly been trying to get Chanticleer to notice her, but all attempts to do so had failed. So Reynard, hoping that her beauty would distract Chanticleer so that the rooster couldn't ruin his plan, offered to give her a makeover. However, Chanticleer would have eventually realized what the fox was up to, at which point the rooster was to have dueled one of Reynard's henchmen, a Spanish fighting rooster who would've gone by Senior Poco Loco, during which time the sun would have risen without the need his crowing. At this, he would learn how being vain is wrong, found the strength to beat Senior Poco Loco and chased away the baddies in the end.

Development

1940s

After the overall success of Disney's first full-length animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Walt was on the lookout for new material that his animation team could adapt for the screen. In 1943, When Chantecler was brought to his attention, Walt told storymen Ted Sears and Al Perkins to see what ideas they could get from the material. However, after they reported to him that difficulties came up due to being unsure of making a rooster a sympathetic character, Walt combined the project with another project named "Reynard the Fox." He thought that having a villain to oppose the rooster would help boost sympathy with the audience. But due to multiple films being in development at the time, the project had to be shelved for majority of WWII.

1960s

After finishing work on 101 Dalmatians, Marc Davis and Ken Anderson decided to collaborate on a film built in the wake of Broadway Musicals. Going down to the Animation Archive Library, they both came across the Chanticleer concept art and liked what they saw. Hearing of this news, Walt urged the duo to scrap all work done on the project and start fresh hoping that they could get it done this way. Thought they were getting a significant amount of work done, other animators were more interested in "The Sword in the Stone" due to the roster being more sympathetic. On the other hand the Roy Disney, The head board of the studio, was trying to convince Walt to halt production on all full length animations to put towards his two Theme Parks. Though he disagreed to this proposal, Walt made the decision to shelve 2 animated projects. Chanticleer was ultimately the decision due to it being cheaper to animate humans than animals.

1980s

In 1981 Mel Shaw proposed a story rewrite. This would've depicted Chanticleer as "the most macho chicken in all of France". This was quickly rejected by then-heads of the studio for the same reason it had been in the past.

Gallery

A video discussing the movie.

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references

http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Chanticleer