Archive notice: This article was originally published on December 9, 2014. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
In summer 2013, Bob Peterson was replaced as director due to creative differences. For several months, co-director Peter Sohn had unofficially been occupying the director’s chair, which Pixar/Disney has now officially announced together with the first publication of concept drawings.
In "The Good Dinosaur", an Apatosaurus keeps a little orphan boy as a pet and playmate, so to speak. And yes: in the story, the dinosaurs are still alive and were not wiped out by a meteorite impact, allowing humans and dinosaurs to be placed together in one story. According to the first concepts, it is apparently also a young Apatosaurus. The herbivore, found mainly in the western USA, can grow to a length of up to 26 metres and a weight of up to 35 tonnes when fully grown.
Although original story elements dealing with the two protagonists growing up remained with the change of director, nature, the environment itself, has now become an independent character or an antagonist to the two.
According to Pixar, changes of director are not so rare. The dinosaur film was the fourth of the past eight films in which a change of director took place. Nevertheless: Such a change is no walk in the park, because given the tight deadlines it generally comes with delays, even though the production period is often easily around four years.
This case also had consequences. For one thing, the film’s release, originally scheduled for May 2014, was pushed back by 18 months. The new date is now November 2015. The "Finding Nemo" sequel "Finding Dory" followed suit, to some point in 2016. And amid all the scheduling turmoil and reorganisation, 50 employees had to leave.
The relatively inexperienced new director Peter Sohn was supported by a small team of Pixar veterans: Production Designer Harley Jessup and Dirctor of Photography-Lighting Sharon Calahan, who earned their spurs on "Ratatouille". The 37-year-old Sohn worked on "Iron Giant" in summer 1999 during his animation studies at the California Institute of the Arts. At Pixar, he ultimately worked in the Art, Story and Animation Department and directed the short film "Partly Cloudy" in 2009.
Former director Peterson continues to write screenplays for Pixar, such as for "Inside Out" and "Finding Dory", but was not available for comment.
Images: Pixar, Disney/Pixar
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