Home on the Range (2004 film)
| Home on the Range | |
|---|---|
 Promotional Poster for Home on the Range | |
| Directed by | Will Finn John Sanford |
| Written by | Will Finn John Sanford |
| Produced by | Alice Dewey |
| Starring | Roseanne Judi Dench Cuba Gooding Jr. Randy Quaid Jennifer Tilly Steve Buscemi |
| Distributed by | Walt Disney Pictures |
Release dates | April 2, 2004 |
Running time | 76 minutes |
| Language | English |
Home on the Range is the forty-fourth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon. It was made and produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, and released on April 2, 2004 by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution. It is the last Disney movie to date to use traditional animation; Disney animated films have used some computer-generated effects for many years, but Disney has since announced plans to move entirely to computer animation after Home on the Range (an example of which lies in their later Chicken Little), and has laid off most of its animation department.
While critics did not generally like the film, which they felt was weak on plot, it was universally praised for Alan Menken's return to Disney animated features. The lyrics were written by Glenn Slater.
The film began pre-production after the release of Pocahontas in 1995. In August 2000, the film was first heard of as Sweating Bullets, and scheduled for a fall 2003 release. Then, there were no proposed pictures from the film. In the summer of 2001, the film got its first pictures, a logo (still having the original title) and a screen-shot. Within the next few months, the film got more pictures. In April 2002, it was decided that the movie should change its title to Home on the Range. It got its new logo in the fall of 2002.
This film was originally slated to have been released in November 2003, but story and production problems forced it to swap release dates with Brother Bear (originally slated for spring 2004) in December 2002. It was also originally expected to be released with a G Rating by the MPAA. However, sources inside Disney have indicated that a joke during the movie's opening sequence, one in which a cow's udder is subtlely compared to surgically-enhanced breasts, resulted in the movie being slapped with a PG rating instead, possibly alienating some of Disney's general audience and lowering the studio's expectations of the movie at the box office.[citation needed] Because of this the movie went on to make $50,030,461 in the U.S. and became one of the lowest grossing Disney animated features ever.
The story is set in the Old West. Unusually for a Western movie (and a Disney film), the main characters are female: three dairy cows, brash, adventurous Maggie, prim, proper Mrs. Calloway and ditzy, somewhat dim-witted Grace (voiced by Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench and Jennifer Tilly respectively), who must capture an infamous cattle rustler in order to save their idyllic farm from foreclosure. (As Grace puts it, "Who better to catch a cattle thief...than a cow?") Aiding them in their quest is Lucky Jack, a feisty, peg-legged rabbit, while an overeager stallion named Buck (Cuba Gooding Jr.) selfishly seeks the bounty – and the glory – for himself.
This was arguably the first Disney animated film to feature three female main characters. However, several of its predecessors included female heroes and villains. See Female protagonists in Disney animated films for details.
The film premiered on the Starz! cable channel on the night of April 2, 2005, exactly a year after its theatrical release.