Legendary animator Don Bluth (The Secret of NIMH, An American Tale, Anastasia, The Land Before Time, Disney’s Robin Hood, The Rescuers, Pete’s Dragon) and long-term collaborator and Gary Goldman (All Dogs to to Heaven, Titan A.E.) have launched a KickStarter campaign to attempt to raise funds for a Dragon’s Lair feature film. Now, raising enough funds to finance an entire animated film through KickStarter would be fairly impossible , so instead they are looking to raise $550,000 to create a 10 minute video to pitch a Dragon’s Lair movie to outside investors. They expect the final movie to cost roughly $70 million to produce.
The movie would be based on the 1980’s arcade game of the same name. Dragon’s Lair was a revolutionary breakthrough in gaming, in that users controlled hand drawn animated segments played from a laserdisc, and your precise movements would determine if the hero, Dirk the Daring, would proceed to the next segment, or perish. If you reacted just at the right movement, it would play out like a fluid animated film. The problem was that in addition to being revolutionary, it was also known as being one of the hardest video games ever made. That didn’t stop people from popping in their quarters to try, or large crowds of people from watching (if you’re not familiar with the game, you can watch the entire gameplay below). The game spawned many sequels, as well as a short lived saturday morning cartoon.
Don Bluth is an incredible animation director, ranking among the very best in the history of the field. But a series of box office disappointments have all but grounded his feature directing career. Hopefully this campaign will put him back in the spotlight, and re-spark interest in him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6em4GRiRY0