Walt Disney Animation Australia had worked on Disney television series since its establishing in 1988. Originally subcontracting to Asian studios akin to TMS Entertainment, Cuckoo’s Nest Studios, and Wang Film Productions, Walt Disney Television Animation began environment up its own overseas satellite studios by the top of the 1980s. In addition to Walt Disney Animation Australia, the agency set up Walt Disney Animation Japan and Walt Disney Animation France formerly the Brizzi Brothers Studios to work on Disney tv courses. As with most American television animation, the main Television Animation branch in California dealt with pre construction writing, storyboarding, and layout, while the satellite studios handled the animation production. The television studios’ first feature construction was 1990’s DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, based upon the syndicated Disney TV show DuckTales.
In 1994, the France studio was absorbed into Walt Disney Feature Animation as work began on a second Disney feature according to a TV show, A Goofy Movie derived from Goof Troop. At the same time, Disney began generating direct to video sequels of its Feature Animation productions, the first of which was the Aladdin sequel The Return of Jafar. More DTV sequels followed, among them Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas 1997, Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World 1998, The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride 1998 and Cinderella II: Dreams Come True 2002. In 2003, the Australia studio became the main creation hub of a new division referred to as Disneytoon Studios, completely dedicated to producing DTV sequels and spin offs of Feature Animation productions. With the closings of the Disney studios in France, Florida and Japan by 2004, in addition to the conversion of the main Feature Animation studio in California to all computer animation production, Disneytoon Australia became the one in house Disney animation studio still actively generating works using conventional animation. Some of the Disneytoon productions, including Return to Never Land 2002 and The Jungle Book 2 2003, got wide theatrical releases as opposed to being issued only on home video.
The Australian studio also offered extra animation on Home on the Range 2004. On July 25, 2005, Disney announced that it was final Disneytoon Studios Australia in October 2006, after 17 years of life, with its final function being Cinderella III: A Twist in Time. The closing was attributed to the rising costs of animation production in Australia. Disneytoon Studios persevered to produce its animated films both conventional and desktop generated with the latter growing it’s recognition at the time after the closure by outsourcing to third party companies. These come with Rough Draft Korea, Wang Film Productions, Kennedy Cartoons, Toon City and Sunwoo, among others.
On June 22, 2007, control of Disneytoon Studios was turned over to the manage of Ed Catmull and John Lasseter under the banner of the recently reorganized and renamed Feature Animation studio, now called Walt Disney Animation Studios. As chief inventive officer, Lasseter called for the cancellation of all future films in creation or development at Disneytoon Studios that were not attached to a Disney Consumer Products franchise. As a result, planned or in development sequels to Dumbo, Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, Pinocchio and The Aristocats were all cancelled, among other projects. A few days later, it was introduced that Disneytoon would now not produce future sequels to Disney lively films, but would as an alternative center around spin offs and original films.
