How Who Framed Roger Rabbit saved Disney (Part 1)

In the summer of 1988, Who Framed Roger Rabbit arrived in theaters. The film was a huge success at the box office, grossing $238 million worldwide. Critics praised the film for it's convincing combination of live action and animation, humor, performances (especially from Bob Hoskins and Christopher Lloyd), and it's ability to appeal more to adults than for kids. Along with An American Tail and The Land Before Time, it brought a renewed interest in feature length animated films for a wide audience, which is why we have so many animated films over the past 30 years, especially The Disney Renaissance. 

Disney's Dark Days and Roger Rabbit's Development

To add some context, we have to go back to the 1970's and early 1980's. After Walt's death in 1966, the company was really struggling both creatively and financially. Sure, Walt Disney World opened in Florida in 1971 with great success, but it's the movies that were struggling. In an era where younger and ambitious filmmakers were making films they would like to make with little to no studio interference, Disney was largely identified as a family friendly brand that was stuck in the past. Most of the company's cinematic output in the 70's were juvenile live action comedies and divisive animated works like The Aristocats and Robin Hood. By the end of the decade and the beginning of the 80's, studio executive Ron Miller, who is Walt's son in law, wanted to do something different to the company.

In 1981, Gary K. Wolf's mystery novel, Who Censored Roger Rabbit? was published. Shortly after the book's publication, Disney acquired the film rights, giving studio executives the chance to produce a potential blockbuster. 

In 1983, animator Daniel Van Critters has made test footage with comedian Paul Reubens as the voice of Roger Rabbit to convince Disney to green light the project. Unfortunately, the film was nearly cancelled until Paramount executive Michael Eisner replaced Ron Miller as the head of the company in 1984. With the project revamped in 1985, Robert Zemeckis was hired to direct the film based on his successes with Back to the Future and Romancing the Stone and Steven Spielberg was hired to produce the film through his production company, Amblin Entertainment. Screenwriters Jeffrey Price and Peter S Seaman were hired to write the script and the late Canadian animator Richard Williams, known for his long-awaited passion project, The Thief and The Cobbler, took on duties as the film's animation supervisor. Spielberg convinced other film studios to unite nearly all of their animated characters into one movie from Disney, which is a very risky thing to do. 

How Did They Do That (Budget, Shooting, and Visual Effects)

Principal photography began in late 1986 at Elstree Studios in London, with additional months spent in Los Angeles and in Industrial Light and Magic for blue screen shots. To convincingly place animated characters in live action settings, the live action was done first. Live props were either manipulated by wires or mechanical devices to create the illusion that the animated characters were touching real objects. Rubber dolls based off the animated characters were used to help aid the actors where to look so they can convincingly interact with cartoon characters that would later be added in post production. To get into character, Charles Fleischer, who did the voice of Roger Rabbit, wore a Roger Rabbit costume on the set, probably so it would appear that the actors were literally hearing a cartoon rabbit talking to them in the same scene. 

Because CGI and digital compositing was at it's infancy in the 80's, no computers were used during the making of this film. The animators were given large black and white stills of the live action scenes so they can draw the characters on top of them. They later shot test footage so their work would be approved. Once after rough animation was done, it was progressed on the traditional methods of inking and painting on cels and the cels were later shot with no background. The animated footage is later transferred to Industrial Light and Magic so it would be combined by an optical printer. To give the illusion that the animated characters were affected by live action lighting, 3 layers (shadows, tone mattes, and highlights) were animated separately and were later optically combined.

For scenes set in the animated world of Toontown, actor Bob Hoskins was shot against a blue screen at Industrial Light and Magic. Both the live action shots and animation were filmed separately and later composited.

Perhaps the biggest challenge the creative team ever faced was the film's budget. Because of the huge creative risks taken with this film, production costs was increasing so rapidly that Michael Eisner was really considering to shut production down. But his then-colleague and future DreamWorks co-founder Jefferey Katzenberg talked him out of it, possibly due to his confidence that Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg would ever pull this off. Of course, if production was shut down, then the film would never have been made and a new era for animation would not occur.

Release and Reaction

In 1984, Disney created Touchstone Pictures so the company would release more mature fare. So when Who Framed Roger Rabbit was in production, Disney was concerned about the film's racy nature and Zemeckis refused to make alterations, since he was given creative freedom. So Disney decided to release the film on their Touchstone Pictures label and the MPAA gave the film a PG rating.

In the blockbuster filled summer of 1988, the movie finally got released in theaters and became a critical and commercial hit, ushering a new audience and a new era for animated films for over 30 years. Roger Ebert called the film a breakthrough in craftmanship as well as great entertainment. He and his TV partner Gene Siskel spent extra time analyzing the ground breaking special effects, as seen here. Today, it's still recognized today as a technological breakthrough and a love letter to classic animation. 

Stay tuned for part 2 for my in-depth thoughts and opinion on the movie.