"The Old Mill" and "The Spring Goddess" were made as practice material for Walt's new project. It was to be a story that would catch everybody. It became a fairy tale. It became "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs".
In the end the movie costed nearly three times as much as Walt had calculated, some $1,5 million. The future of the studio depended on this movie. On its opening evening on December 21, 1937, in the Carhay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles, big stars like Shirley Temple, Charlie Chaplin and Cary Grant attended the movie. Snow White became a huge success. The stars were crying when Snow White died and cheered at the end of the movie. Walt had struck gold, again. With the money that Snow White generated, Walt began building a new studio in Burbank. It costed $3 million. The company started to work on three new films, Pinocchio, Fantasia and Bambi. Each would bring animation to a new level. Pinocchio would be new world of startling detail and design. Fantasia would use animation in a new way via various pieces of classic music. And Bambi would bring new levels of realism into animation. But while they were working, the artists weren't happy anymore. They wanted more money, but Walt had invested much. And when World War II started, Walt lost the European market. Pinocchio was therefor a mild success and Fantasia wasn't a success at all. The studio was not creating money like it should and then a strike hit the Disney studio. To escape the pressure, Walt travelled to South America. |
