It happened on Frozen and it's happening, now, on Disney's upcoming animated feature Gigantic. Announced yesterday (Monday), Meg LeFauve, who was already writing on Gigantic, was just promoted to Director, joining the original director Nathan Greno, for being recognized as adding key creative direction to the script and development. It will be LeFauve's first directing credit.
Sources say the move is akin to what transpired on Disney’s 2013 hit Frozen, on which Jennifer Lee was promoted from screenwriter to director alongside Chris Buck. (source)
We applaud the recognition of female writing talent and recognizing the potential for the position of director, we hope this shows the long-coming acceptance of women in leadership roles in the "good-old-boys club" of feature animation. There's no doubt LeFauve has the talent and ability. Her credits and track record testify to that. (LeFauve is most recently known for her work on the upcoming Captain Marvel.)There has been a trend in recent years of Disney adding a second director to their movies during development and production, as seen in Big Hero 6 and Zootopia, as well as Frozen, so it's not without precedence. We're very interested to see what a Greno-LeFauve team looks like in terms of creative output.
Official description: Set in Spain during the Age of Exploration, Gigantic follows a teenage adventure-seeker Jack as he discovers a world of giants hidden within the clouds. Along the way he meets Inma, a 60-foot-tall, 10 year-old girl, and agrees to help her find her way home. But he doesn't account for her super-sized personality. Who knew giants were so down to earth?
"Jack befriends the female giant Inma, who’s “11 years old, 60 feet tall, fiery, feisty and a lot to control” and treats him like a living doll", Greno said. (D23)It should also be noted that Kristen Anderson Lopez and Robert Lopez (Frozen) are confirmed as writing the music. Gigantic is currently scheduled for release on November 21, 2018.
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| Found on Tumblr as a Gigantic/Star Versus the Forces of Evil crossover (both Disney properties). You can see the character of Inma mirroring Star very well (by an anonymous Drawfriend) |
Fairy Tale Bonus of the Day:
New Character for Gigantic: The Golden Goose
(reposting, extracted from Tumblr)
If people were not aware, there’s been a new character revealed for Disney’s Gigantic. It’s the Golden Goose. Thing is though, the character hasn’t been finalised. From the concept art by@pbcbstudios (voice of Marshmallow, Mr. Yama), we see that it’s going to join the ranks of Maximus, Sven and Pua of non-speaking Animals. This means to say that there’s going to be some gimmick with this character (Maximus was strategic and engaged in combat despite being a horse and Sven was able to speak through Kristoff). But, there’s some more interesting details that people may not realise…
It nests in human hair: On the concept art, we see that it nests on human hair, and, it has strands of blonde all hair over its body. This elaborates on a lot more than people may presume. For instance, it’s a size indicator of the Golden Goose being regular human size if it rests on giant hair strands. Also, if the hair is blonde, we can assume that the golden goose is associated with Imna. And before you wonder, I don’t think it’s even Imna’s pet, because…
The significance of birds: Linking back with my previous point with the Golden Goose being associated with Imna, another point to stress out is a world building aesthetic of Gigantic. Now, I want you to evaluate this picture (LEFT) very closely and identify anything that particularly stands out in this art…
Still haven’t figured it out yet? Well, birds are insects in the world of Gigantic. This leads to a lot of creative scenarios, for instance, pigeons and seagulls being pests instead of flies and mosquitoes.
But how is the Golden Goose significant to the plot? We'll have to wait a little longer to find that out.
