Twenty years ago in 1989, Disney released The Little Mermaid. It would be the first of 10 critically acclaimed animated films released by Disney. Nine out of the ten films were nominated for Academy Awards, including “Best Picture” for 1994’s Beauty and the Beast (the only animated film to be nominated in this category). The 1989-1999 era is now known as The Disney Renaissance.The films include: The Little Mermaid (1989), The Rescuer’s Down Under (1990), Beauty and the Best (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), Mulan (1998) and Tarzan (1999).
Now, ten years after their last successful film, (Tarzan 1999), Disney is returning to their classic Broadway-musical style, in hopes of beginning a new era of critically-acclaimed and commercially successful 2-D animated films, with the upcoming released of The Princess and the Frog (due out later this year). I guess we’ll just need to wait and see...