Treasure Planet

Treasure Planet

Failing to learn from the colossal ’90s bomb that was Carolco’s Cutthroat Island, Disney commissioned another big budget pirate movie in the 2000s. Treasure Planet (2002) ambitiously combined hand-drawn 2D animation with advanced 3D computer graphics and the storyline of children’s classic Treasure Island, which was re-written to ditch the pirate galleons and tropical islands for hoverboards and flying ships. The movie took four-and-a-half years to create, with over a thousand people involved in its production. It was bold, it involved a huge amount of effort from a small army of crew members, and it was an utterly insipid idea which made less than a quarter of what it cost to make in the US, losing up to $70 million worldwide. It just goes to show that Johnny Depp is the only one who can get away with this sort of cutthroat caper in a Disney movie nowadays.