Have you seen the documentary "The Sweatbox"? It's a documentary about how Kingdom of the Sun became Emperor's New Groove, and the troubled production behind that film. It's fascinating, and you can only watch it online because Disney will not release it to the public.
Definitely! I have watched it more than once, in fact. I’ve had this fascination for Kingdom of the Sun for years, now, and this is practically the only way you can get any info on it, after all.
I’d say that this documentary is probably one of the most honest, non-glorified looks you will get of how big name animation studios actually make their movies. I mean, that should probably go without saying, but still, The Sweatbox is nothing like other Disney and Pixar documentaries, because those were made by and for themselves. They won’t make the production of their movies look too chaotic, even if they were total nightmares. They can’t make themselves look too unappealing.
The Sweatbox, on the other hand, was made by Sting’s wife, independently. And at the time, it was just supposed to be an interesting little documentation on how Kingdom of the Sun came to be, so, no issue there. Instead, it became the documentation of the movie’s death, and how incredibly stressful the whole process of change and executive meddling can be on the artists. No wonder Disney banned it…
I find it hard to be mad at the change, though, because I do love Emperor’s New Groove. And to be honest, I know that most of my fascination for Kingdom of the Sun is due to the fact that, well, it’s a mystery, an unfinished project. There’s something inevitably enticing about that. It’s likely that, if the movie were finished as intended, it would have been an unmemorable piece of early 2000′s Disney animation… or, it could have been a classic. Or just a fun little movie. Or a catastrophically bad one.
We can never know, and that uncertainty is definitely an appeal, to me. Although either way, The Sweatbox can at least give me enough for me say for sure that Yzma’s villain song would have been amazing!
