Bard Bird's The Iron Giant
At the end of the Disney Renaissance, one movie tried to dethrone the king
In this blog’s last three posts, we covered three 2D animated: Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, and Titan A.E. Each of these films came right at the end of the era known as the Disney Renaissance, and each underperformed. They were released in the waning days of theatrical, 2D animated films. In less than a decade after the latest of these films, Treasure Planet, most animated films released in theaters become 3D animated ones.
In 1999, before all of those films released, another film company, Warner Bros., would take a crack at competing with Disney with its own animated films. As previous posts have stated, American animation found a new life in the 1990s. Disney was releasing films such as the Lion King, which were huge hits critically and more importantly, huge hits at the box office. Other studios such as Paramount, DreamWorks, Fox Animation, and Warner Bros were trying to dethrone Disney with their own animated features.
In the 1990s, Warner Bros. had released a string of films including Rover Dangerfield, and Quest for Camelot which all underperformed at the box office. After these flops, it did release Space Jam, a live action animation hybrid which was a box office hit. During this time, it began production on another animated feature, The Iron Giant.
The Iron Giant was inspired by the story The Iron Man, written by the Welsh poet Ted Hughes. The film had a long production, and underwent many iterations before its final release. Eight years before the film’s release, lead animator Richard Bazley, who at the time was working at Don Bluth Studios, presented a ten point pitch to Don Bluth himself. Bazley’s pitch took inspiration from the story, but expanded on it, going into more details. Bluth ultimately turned down the pitch, feeling that the minimalistic story would be better suited to a 20 minute featurette.1
It should be noted that this was also not the first adaptation of Hughes’ story. In the 1980s, The Who’s Pete Townshend did his own stage musical adaption of The Iron Man, titled The Iron Man: The Musical.2 This version was originally going to be adapted into the theatrical film. However, this changed when director Brad Bird came aboard. He opted to make the film a non-musical, and altering the story. Townshend was still credited as a producer.
When Brad Bird was brought on to direct The Iron Giant, he was trying to develop a different movie titled Ray Gunn Turner when it merged with Warner Bros. There was not much interest in the project at the time, and Bird had several months left on his contract. He was offered a variety of scripts to choose from instead. He read three, and finally selected Warner’s adaptation of The Iron Man: The Musical.
Bird would end up being the ultimate vision behind The Iron Giant. He opted to alter the story to be set during Cold War Era America in the 1950s, instead of the original story’s setting in England. Other changes that Bird chose to make to the story included adding the character Dean and Kent Mansley, and refocusing the story. In Hughes’ original story, the plot shifted from focusing on the relationship between the boy and the giant and instead following a battle with a Giant Space Bat. Bird instead, wanted to tell a different story, proposing “what if a gun had a soul” as his pitch.3
From its start, The Iron Giant sought to differentiate itself from the films being released by Disney and other studio’s at the time. It did not want any musical numbers, any celebrity sidekicks, and opted for a mature story that both kids and adults could appreciate. Brad Bird also noted that the film was produced in a much different way from Disney’s films at the time. It had a rather small production team, and unlike Disney’s films, was not micromanaged. In an interview with AWN in 1999, Brad Bird remarked on the film’s differences with it competitors:
"This film was made by this animation team. It was not a committee thing at all. We made it. I don't think any other studio can say that to the level that we can. The tradeoff is that we had one-third of the money of a Disney or DreamWorks film, and half of the production schedule. We have a few rough edges on our film, but we also have a lot of heart." - Brad Bird4
One thing that set The Iron Giant apart from its competition was that tried to tell a more mature story. In addition to a lack of wacky sidekicks or song numbers, the film also had more quiet moments, allowing the story to breath rather than constantly trying to keep its audience hooked with noise. The result is a rather dark and mature film that deals with themes such as Cold War paranoia, fear, and the consequences of violence.
The Iron Giant released to good reviews from critics, but flopped at the box office, not making back it’s budget unfortunately. After trying to chart a course in animation that was separate from Disney, Brad Bird would ultimately decide to go work at Pixar, direction films like The Incredibles, to much critical acclaim. The Iron Giant remains a cult classic, beloved by fans to this day. Like the other films we have recently covered, it represented an alternate path for Western Animation, one which they industry ultimately did not puruse.
Details on Bazley’s pitch to Don Bluth were found in an archived version of this old interview with Animation Artist from 1999.
Details on Pete Townshend’s musical adaptation, and his involvement were found in this article from IndieWire: 5 Things You Might Not Know About Brad Bird's 'The Iron Giant'.
Brad Bird gave details on his involvement with the project and changes he made in an interview with AWN.com in 2009, where he discussed the film’s 10-year anniversary.
This quote was originally in the 1999 AWN article Lean, Mean Fighting Machine:
How Brad Bird Made The Iron Giant, by Bob Miller. This article was also used for details on the Iron Giant’s production, as well as the differences between it and Disney’s films.