1997 - Hercules

Hunchback was a contentious movie, but while it didn’t reach the heights of their earlier renaissance work, it did get noticeably better reviews than Pocahontas. It made slightly less money, but the critical goodwill was back, and since their next feature was a lighthearted comedy in a historically themed legendary setting, from the directors of Aladdin. So they must have felt a bit more confident going in, despite Greek mythology being about as...

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1996 - The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Pocahontas may have made big bank, but it was a critical disaster, and the box office and merchandising receipts, while quite good, were pathetic compared to the Lion King. In the past when Disney’s taken a drubbing, they’ve retreated into their comfort zone and made a few easy successes before getting ambitious again. But that was back in the day when they’d make one movie at a time. These days they start a few years in advance, and before this...

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1995 - Pocahontas

Man, oh, man. We have seen Disney flying high before, but never this high or this consistently. Did the Lion King make money? Try highest-grossing animated film of all time. And while box office records like that don’t mean much unless adjusted for inflation, it’s still remarkably impressive that it held that record until Toy Story 3 came along to unseat it with the benefit of a higher base ticket price, a 3D price bump, AND being the last entry...

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1994 - The Lion King

Happy New Year! That’s… not really an accomplishment? Well, I said I’d do one movie a week, and I’ve done greater than one every two weeks. If you know my usual schedule, that’s a hell of an achievement. So what are we up to now?Oh boy, it’s Beauty and the Beast all over again. Look, you all know this one, right? You’ve all seen it? You know it’s very good. Great. Let’s move on to Pocahontas. I got a lot to complain about there. Ahhhh, I can’t do...

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