John Lasseter is Rebuilding Disney Animation

[Damian]

If all this is true it's GREAT news.

The Pixar team of Ed Catmull and John Lasseter, who will be taking over feature animation production at the Walt Disney studios, is apparently wasting no time attempting to restore energy and morale there. Word spread Tuesday on websites devoted to animation that Catmull and Lasseter plan to bring back to the studio some of the animation talent who were let go or who resigned in the wake of Disney's decision to abandon hand-drawn animation and focus on computer-generated animation instead. The two reportedly have specifically singled out the veteran writer/director/producer team of John Musker and Ron Clements as ranking high on their list of persons they wished to rehire. On Tuesday it was announced that Disney had signed composer Alan Menken (The Little Mermaid) to a multipicture deal and had assigned him to write five songs for the upcoming live-action/hand-drawn animated film Enchanted. On Tuesday, the website o-meon.com ("for grown-up geeks") quoted a Disney animation staffer as saying, "We're just so damn happy all of this is happening. ... We just can't believe that everything we've been trying to tell [Disney management] for years if finally coming true. We finally have a chief executive in Bob Iger who understands what creativity means to the company!"