What is THE SWEATBOX?
THE SWEATBOX is the name of Trudie Styler's Documentary about the troubled production of Disney Animation's 2000 classic THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE.
It's also the name of the original screening room that Walt Disney himself used to screen pencil tests of the animation for SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARVES from his animators on a moviola before final approval for the ink and paint process.
The room itself had no air conditioning, which is bizarre even for 1930s standards, so the animators would often sweat due to both the trapped humidity of the room and the animator's anxiety of whether or not Walt would approve or scrutinize their work.
Even though properly well-ventilated cinema auditorium-style Screening Rooms would be the standard for final approval in animation, at least until computers and Video-Conferencing would supplant it halfway, we still use the term SWEATBOX because every animator, regardless if it's 2D, CGI, stop motion, or Unreal, would have the right to be nervous whether their work will get approved or scrutinized by the higher ups in the studio.
QUITE A FITTING NAME FOR A DOCUMENTARY.
Even though THE SWEATBOX is a somewhat truncated account of the actual behind the scenes drama behind THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE,
(According to animators David Pruiksma and Tom Sito, the actual behind the scenes turmoil was way worse than what the documentary showed)
The Sweatbox is actually a very effective documentary on how Executive Meddling can always cause lots of problems in the long run, not only for the people who work on the production but also to the viewers who have expectations for what they want for a film.
So in anticipation of the 25th Anniversary of this Classic Disney film released during the start of the experimental era of the Studio's Animation front, I'm going to take you animation fans on a little time travel journey to the year.....
1994...
Why 1994?
Because that's when the film under it's original Title:
Was greenlit and began Production.
This was all due to the unexpected success of THE LION KING from that same year.
Normally, Disney would prefer to hover or keep close tabs on their productions but this time, at least until 1998 which we'll get to soon, they decided to let Mr. Allers go all out with his ideas.
The plotline of the film was, it was sort of dissimilar to
THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER
But rather, set in the INCAN agriculture of SOUTH AMERICA.
It was going to star a much Younger PACHA, voiced by OWEN WILSON
It also had a differently designed Kuzco,
Back when he was originally named MANCO.
Even then, DAVID SPADE was still cast as the Emperor.
And even then, Manco was still the self-centered ASS he is in the final film.... until he has a change of heart that is.
Oh, and the two have the same character models.
Rather than me bashing the two for having the same facial design, I'm going to applaud it because it's actually part of the original plot of the film, where the two actually swap places just because they have the same face and body.
Sort of similar to the classic PRINCE AND THE PAUPER fable.
Don't worry, YZMA was still in the original storyline,
But in KINGDOM OF THE SUN, her motives are different.
Instead of wanting to depose of Ku.... er.... MANCO... from the throne,
she wanted to block out the sun so she can regain her lost youth.
And MANCO being transformed into a llama was still going to be a major plot point in the film.
The film was more in line of being a dark-in-tone epic but still with Musical Numbers.
And who's writing and singing those musical numbers?
And that's how THE SWEATBOX as a documentary was born.
But this blogpost doesn't end here.... There's more juicy stuff to talk about.
Anyway, the film was well underway with writing, Rough Animations, story reels, model sheets, color sheets, recorded dialogue, recorded Musical Numbers, etc.
but then suddenly, something happened....
And that's where we skip forward to the year 1998, when the film was screened to both
The two reportedly disliked the overall pacing and the plotline of the film.
Not only that, but the film was in an incomplete state with little to no final colored animation.... just storyboards and a few pencil tests...
Needless to say, there were two things that the two liked from the initial reel which were the
LOVE SONG "Someday she'll love me"
&
THE LLAMA SONG "Walk the LLAMA,LLAMA"
But what was really the problem was the film was set up with all the marketing promotions with companies like McDonalds, Coca-Cola, etc.
all done behind Roger Aller's back.
In my opinion, that's just blatantly violating the auteur license you just granted to your creator.
But backstabbed Marketing aside, the company expected the film to be finished by no later than Summer 2000.
And you know what happened,
You guessed it,
Roger Allers had a fight with his employers about extending the film by 6 months to allow it to be fleshed out..
While Disney would release the final film on December 2000 as Roger Allers predicted, at the time, the company would not take that for an answer so Allers walked out of the project.
And that’s when Mark Dindall, fresh from the 1997 WB film CATS DON’T DANCE,
would come to take over the film, alongside the late RANDY FULLMER.
Dindall was brought along to make the film more comedic than it already was previously.
The film reportedly went through several revisions in order to make it more comedic, lighthearted, etc.
Several old Characters were written out.
HUACA was one of them.
This little guy, voiced by Harvey Fierstein, was going to be an advisor and necklace to Manco before defecting to Yzma... and then later regretting his actions.
But he was reportedly written out due to an issue of how he’d fit in the film.
Only a dining decoration of his likeness survived in the Final Cut.
Pacha’s original love interest NINA
That and the fact that Pachą was aged to a 45 year old father figure so that meant...
creating a wife for him in the form of CHICHA.
And CHICHA barely made it into the film unscathed as she was repeatedly removed and put back in the screenplay. It's even mentioned in THE SWEATBOX how Chicha was repeatedly removed and put back.
I guess there were many protests by both the writers and animators over character removals to the point she ultimately remains in the film after all the drama involved.
At one point during the revisions, Manco would have a love interest in the form of MATA.
MATA for some reason wasn’t mentioned in THE SWEATBOX which is rather surprising.
In one of these drafts which was KINGDOM IN THE SUN, Mata was a llama herder who was tough as nails with a sarcastic streak.
Sadly though, MATA would be written out.
But at least she lives on as the DreamWorks heroine CHEL from El Dorado,
and Audrey Ramirez from Disney's 2001 film ATLANTIS THE LOST EMPIRE
And no, the waitress from the final version of the film does not count despite sharing the same name.
And please don't say that Malina from EMPEROR'S NEW SCHOOL counts as a way to make up for MATA being written out from KINGDOM IN THE SUN.....
Characters that remained include Pachą who as I mentioned would be aged up to that of a father figure and Village Chief,
Manco would be redesigned,
According to Spade,
He thought Disney requested the name change because the name MANCO meant PUSSY in Japanese but he later quipped by saying that the original name MANCO meant BAD MOVIE in Turkish which obviously the studio didn’t want in a translated reference.
Thanks for your support Manc.... er..... KUZCO.... real supportive of you.
Yzma would remain in the film, barring a few changes in design and motives.
A new character not seen in the original drafts but mentioned in THE SWEATBOX would be created to serve as comic foil to YZMA.
That being fan-favorite KRONK.
Voiced by Patrick Warburton of FAMILY GUY fame.
The drama behind the entire film's transformation has been grueling for those involved but throwing away almost a third of an original drama in favor of a comedy has led to almost a lot of revolts within the company.
Roger Allers and Andreas Deja both left the production of Emperor in favor of working on Chris Sander's LILO AND STITCH which would release in 2002.
Honestly, where most of us stand on whether the film works better as the original KINGDOM OF THE SUN vs. what we got which is THE EMPEROR'S NEW GROOVE....
is up for debate.
For many who grew up watching the film in cinemas or through Home Video, they'll say it was a blessing from the gods that we got the film as it was released.... probably due to all those memes that originated from the film.
Such as this classic one shown below:
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