Yank producer-animator-director Don Bluth, on a 17-day European promo tour for "The Secret of NIMH" took some swipes at the Walt Disney Studios and at MGM/UA's handling of the release of his animated feature in the U.S. and announced pre-production for his upcoming "Chanticleer" (from "The Canterbury Tales") skedded to start in about two weeks at Bluth's studio in Los Angeles.
Bluth, who together with a team of other talent, including coproducers Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy, broke away from the Disney Studios in 1979, quipped during a Variety interview: "Leaving Disney was like setting off in a dinghy from the Queen Mary in a fog and rowing away into the unknown."
Bluth managed to raise the $6,500,000 budget for "The Secret of NIMH" from private non-show biz financiers, beginning with a staff of 15 other Disney employees in late 1979 and putting some $250,000 into his new studio, where the "NIMH" staff eventually grew to 65 plus 150 "helpers."
Bluth then made a deal with UA when Norbert Auerbach was still at the helm, for worldwide distribution, with a 17% cut for Bluth. UA rights run for 15 years; but when MGM took over UA they were loath to invest any coin in promotion of the pic.
"We had to raise another $4,200,000 on our own from private funding to pay for the prints and the ad campaign for MGM to spend. MGM had no faith in our animated feature and they used a rollout compaign, starting on the Coast and working eastwards."
Bluth said he was far happier with the foreign handling of the film, thanks largely to United International Pictures' Michael Williams-Jones, in its German and Austrian release in July. Bluth claims the pic did $12,000,000 gross in the U.S., and that in Germany it racked up 16,000,000 DM (around $8,000,000). In Latin America, UIP will release a Spanish and Portuguese-dubbed version. Yule releases are set for France, Belgium, Scandinavia, Holland and Spain. In Italy, it'll open later since Disney has booked the Xmas playdates in that country. It'll bow in Australia at Eastertime.
On his new project, financed by a different private group of investors, Bluth has set a budget of $10,500,000. "On the whole, the animated feature sector is teetering. Aside from the tv fodder, animation as an art form can only comtinue to subsist in and out of Disney by bringing in a new thought process." he said.
"The field is in crisis. Disney is still undecided about starting a new feature. Ralph Bakshi told me he's made nine films, but now wants to go into live production. In the last 15 years 32 animated features have been made in the States, of which only four or five have been financially usccessful."
Nonetheless, Bluth feels optimistic about the future of feature animation, and blames the "ignorance" of producers for many of the past failures. The producer-helmer sez he is maintaining a 65-person staff in his L.A. animation studio. He has also had several meetings with Steven Spielberg who has expressed interest in collaborating on an animated project in the future and who may get involved in Bluth's following film. (Per Bluth, Spielberg huddled with Disney earlier this year but was unable to come to any agreement with the studio.)
Bluth figures it'll take him about two years to do the "Chanticleer" project. No deal had been made yet on it in respect to distribution.