How legendary animator Glen Keane went from making your favorite Disney movies to directing his first animated Netflix film
Legendary Disney animator Glen Keane ("Beauty and the Beast," "The Little Mermaid," "Tangled") is directing his first full-length movie, "Over the Moon."
It's not a Disney movie, however. It's at Netflix.
In an Insider interview, Keane explained why he's directing his first full-length animation for the streaming service.
Keane was drawn to the idea that Netflix was creating an animation studio built on the creative freedom of its directors.
He's currently discussing another Netflix collaboration, working on a personal project, and also has an animated series, "Trash Truck," led by his son Max, coming to the streaming service.
"Over the Moon" will be available to stream on Netflix on Friday.
If the name Glen Keane doesn't ring any bells, it should.
The legendary Disney animator brought many of the company's iconic characters to life, including Ariel ("The Little Mermaid"), the Beast ("Beauty and the Beast"), Tarzan, Pocahontas, and Rapunzel ("Tangled").
Now, Keane is directing his first full-length animated picture, "Over the Moon," about a young girl who struggles with accepting the idea of a new stepmom and brother, and eventually escapes in a rocket adventure to the moon.
There's just one thing. The movie's not at Disney. Keane is making his animated directorial debut at Netflix.
The animator joins the ranks of other former Disney artists, including Jeff Ranjo, Alex Woo, Meg LeFauve, and Frank Abney, who are now working on animated shows and films for the streaming giant.
Insider recently spoke with Keane over Zoom to learn why the legendary Disney animator took his talents to the streaming service, why this was the movie he needed to direct, whether he's consulting at all on Disney's live-action "The Little Mermaid," and if we can expect to see more of his work at the streaming service. (The short answer: very likely.)
Keane almost directed Disney animation's 2010 hit "Tangled"
For someone who has animated so many of Disney's memorable characters of the late '80s and '90s , it may be surprising that his animated directorial debut is at one of the company's rivals. But Disney fans may know that almost wasn't the case.
"'Rapunzel,' to me, was the first film that I wanted to direct. That was at Disney. It became 'Tangled,'" Keane told Insider of the fairy tale that was in the works for years at Disney Animation and underwent several name and script changes.
The idea for "Tangled" was mulling around in Keane's head while he was working on "Tarzan" in 1996 before pitching the story to former Disney CEO Michael Eisner in 2001.
Then called "Unbraided," changes in the story's plot and conversations over whether or not it should be computer animated originally pushed back the film before production was briefly shut down. In 2006, Ed Catmull and John Lasseter were put in charge of Disney Animation and they forged ahead on it again with Keane at the helm.
"I did work on it for five years, but it came at a time where there were so many changes in management. Everything just kept changing and [there would be] another version of the story," Keane said of his time as director from about 2002 to 2008.
Keane stepped down from directing the film following a heart attack in 2008, and the film was eventually directed by Nathan Greno and Byron Howard. Still, he continued working as an executive producer and animation supervisor on "Tangled." He even helped navigate the complexities of Rapunzel's expensive hair until its 2010 release.
Keane still wanted to direct, but knew it needed to be the right story.
"It didn't really change my attitude towards directing," Keane said of his experience working on "Tangled." "I'd always felt like the only reason that I would direct is to be able to tell the story of a character that I really wanted to animate. And if somebody wasn't interested in doing that story, then I'll do it because it's all about living in the skin of the character for me."
Keane left Disney to take animation in a different direction, landing at Google and creating an Oscar-winning short with Kobe Bryant
After 38 years, Keane left Disney in March 2012, telling colleagues in a resignation letter, "I am convinced that animation really is the ultimate art form of our time with endless new territories to explore. I can't resist it's siren call to step out and discover them."
When asked if one of the reasons he left Disney was because he didn't get an opportunity to direct, Keane told Insider, "No, not really."
"I started to develop another project there that I love, and I think that that was going to be...," Keane continued before trailing off and starting over. "I really was happy at Disney and loved my relationship there, but there's something about a huge studio that you carry so much weight on your shoulders as what that film has to represent."
He added that there's "so many interests in a big company and I experienced that very much with 'Rapunzel,' how many different focuses of management and interest were in the changes of that story."
Before he left, Keane recalled Catmull, then president of Walt Disney Animation, asking him what he was looking for in his next career move.
"He could see I was wrestling with this," Keane said. "And I said, 'Well, Ed, I want to live creatively without walls.'"
Keane said something else was calling him too. The son of cartoonist Bil Keane, who created "Family Circus," Keane comes from a family of artists. His brother, Jeff, took over their father's comic. Keane's daughter Claire is a design artist and his son Max is a computer graphics artist.
Keane wasn't quite sure what was calling him, but in the time he worked at Disney, he met many animators and artists around the world at different studios. He wished to collaborate with them in the future, but didn't how he could easily do that.
When his wife, Linda, asked him what he wanted to do instead, Keane said maybe he wanted to work at Google. She was perplexed.
"'What? Google? They don't do animation,'" Keane remembered her saying. "And I said, 'Yeah, but wouldn't it be wonderful to take animation in places that it's not normal?'"
Google wound up being the first place to call Keane when he left Disney. There, he created the first hand-drawn animation made in 60 frames per second, a short called "Duet." He then did a short with the Paris Opera. Afterwards, the late Kobe Bryant called him up to direct and animate what became the Oscar-winning short film, "Dear Basketball."
"I said, Kobe, 'You've got the worst basketball player in the world animating you,'" Keane said when the idea came to him. "[Kobe] said, 'Well, that's good because anything you learn about basketball is going to be [from] studying him.'"
Netflix allowed him to live "creatively without walls"
In 2017, Keane was speaking at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival when the Netflix opportunity came around.
"I just talked about everything I loved about animation," Keane said. "I shared about animating characters that believe the impossible is possible. That's what I'm really excited about."
Future vice president of kids and family programming at Netflix, Melissa Cobb, and Pearl Studio's chief creative officer, Peilin Chou, were seated in the audience. The two approached him afterwards.
"They both had this story, 'Over the Moon,' with exactly that kind of character in Fei Fei, who believes the impossible is possible."
In the film, Fei Fei (Cathy Ang) grapples with her father moving on after the loss of her mother. In response, she builds a rocket to travel to the moon to prove the existence of the goddess, Chang'e, a story her mother used to share with her.
Written by the late Audrey Wells ("The Hate U Give"), the script was intended as a love letter to her daughter and husband about what happens when you lose someone. Wells died during the film's production in 2018, at the age of 58, after a battle with cancer.
"They approached me and I felt this is something I can't miss. I feel like I was born to do this movie," Keane said, even though he was working on a different project he planned to direct and develop at the time.
Afterwards, Cobb visited Keane's studio in West Hollywood. In the same space where he worked with Bryant and John Williams, Cobb, who came from DreamWorks, shared her vision for Netflix's animation studio.
"She talked about creative freedom and how important it was for the creators to be authentic," Keane said of what was pitched to him. "This is going to be a new kind of an animation studio that's really built on the creative freedom of its directors. And I thought, 'Well, that sounds really cool, but is that real?' And it turns out that it really, really was."
"We were able to move through this movie, putting the entire film up on storyboards with the music, songs, everything in about four months, which never could have happened in a different situation," Keane said. "There was never a point where we throw the movie out and we start over again, where you switched directors... All of the money put into this movie, 90% of it, is all up on the screen."
Keane says he hopes people take away from 'Over the Moon' the fact that things can never go back to the way they once were
Keane wanted to make sure they took extra care with the weight of this story, knowing it was additionally Wells' final film.
"Had I known that about Kobe, that his film was going to summarize his life and career, it would have been very difficult," Keane said, reflecting on the unexpected death of the basketball player back in January.
"This time we did know and so we really leaned into the truth of the emotional pain of the story," Keane said. "This was the most difficult thing. How do you really dive in deep to that and not make it heavy? Music came in to really lift that emotion. I think of the film more as a visual poem."
The song "Rocket to the Moon," which is already being deemed an Oscar contender, comes at a pivotal moment early in the film. It's a perfect example of a melody where you can feel the pain of the protagonist, Fei Fei, as she longs to cling to the fairy tale her mother shared with her in her youth. Throughout the film, Fei Fei learns she can't continue living life in the past.
Keane reflected on what the film's message says about the world right now as the novel coronavirus pandemic continues to affect the world.
"As Fei Fei says, 'I just wish life could go back the way it was. I find myself saying that. I really do. I just want it to go back the way it was, in the world," Keane said. "The more I think about this movie, I realize I need to hear this message that we are not going back. You only live life forward, and that there's something really, really good and wonderful to come."
For his next project, Keane won't return to Disney. He said he'll likely stay at Netflix along with work on a personal project.
When asked if he's consulting at all on Disney's live-action "The Little Mermaid," Keane said he isn't. There's no time to look back. Keane has plenty going on at the streaming service right now. At 66, Keane, is enjoying the freedom he has right now to work on other projects with his own company, Glen Keane Productions.
"Right now, I really enjoy my relationship with Netflix and would love to do more with them, and we're certainly talking about that," Keane said.
And then there's the next generation of artists in his family.
On November 10, Netflix will release his son's upcoming animated children's series, "Trash Truck," which is a collaborative family project about a little boy, Hank, who has an imaginary best friend, who just so happens to be a garbage truck.
In addition to writing and showrunning, the younger Keane, Max, voices the father character. Keane also lends his voice to the grandfather and Trash Truck. Max's entire family is involved as well with his wife, Megan, voicing the mother, their son, Henri, voicing the lead Hank, and their daughter, Olive, as his sister.
"It is so unique, unlike any children's show," Keane said of the series they developed together. "It's so sweet and wonderful, genuine, and gentle as a children's show."
"Over the Moon" will be available to stream on Netflix on Friday.
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