Why is The Great Mouse Detective so important?
During the making, a vast majority of Disney’s talent, time, money ($25 million, in fact, the world-record sum during the time for an animated feature) were concentrated on an epic animated film, The Black Cauldron (1 out of only 2 Disney full-lengths that actually had PG rating); while a smaller crew worked on a different feature with a much smaller budget, headed by Burny Mattinson, Dave Michener, John Musker and Rob Clements. In 02 July 1986, in a BIG shadow of the more expensive feature’s critical and HUGE box-office failure the previous year, GMD received warm reviews and moderate financial success. The movie grossed $18 million in the US in the first month after its release — an astounding feat by any standards! It rather proved that a good film requires a good story and interesting characters rather than money (perhaps Hollywood could learn from this). Disney calls GMD “a learning film,” where a film is used as an creative experiment who will, in due time, cause a great innovat
