Rumors have been flying around that Glen Keane has ruined Disney and animation altogether due to his work on Tarzan, where the movie ran approximately fifty million dollars over budget and lost Disney Feature Animation money to the point that they had to cut costs for their next project. 'Tahsin', who was in Glen Keane's team on Tarzan, in the Paris studio, shares at the Animation Nation Bulletin Board that "he was demanding and hard to please, but always a great inspiration. His mere presence filled us all with a compulsion to excel, and for a while there, that studio fairly crackled with the creative energy of which he was the centre. True, his perfectionism and his search, through us, for the essence of the Tarzan character might have cost the studio some pennies, but the truth remains that, even from a great distance, he was filling in most ably for the directors wherever they fell short. And the directors did fall short; whatever their merits as artists, they were just not up to the responsibility of a huge production like this, and the waste of time that ensued from their indecision, unclear briefs, and changing of minds must bear the greatest responsibility in the film's extensive production schedule. Many of the best, most successful sequences were boarded by Glen himself, strengthening weak situations and greatly improving the overall look and feel of the film. Another difficulty came from the layout department which, apparently in awe of the possibilities afforded by the new computer technologies, often forgot that some artist had to draw the character in, resulting in layouts that made the scenes almost impossible to animate, and to shoot and present on linetest. (Actually, I'm not talking specifically about "deep canvas" here, which I found fun to work with, but rather conventional layouts with camera moves inside the computer.) That was because of a communications breakdown that came from too rapidly developing technologies and too little interaction between members of different departments, leading to animation assignments that were more difficult and time-consuming than necessary. I hoped those problems would be ironed out afterwards."

On March 6, 1999 On Coming Attractions on E!, they showed a trazan trailor, although it was the same one shown before Patch Adams.

The following is an exerpt from Ain't-It-Cool-News They showed almost 30 minutes of the movie at thne Disney toy Fair in 5-7 minute chunks from throughout the film, some of them unfinished. The character work is beautiful and fluid, the backgrounds gorgeous, and man, I never thought I'd lust afetr a cartoon character the way I'm lusting after Jane! The segments they showed involved baby Tarzan being discovered by the apes, his growing up, the adult Tarzan's discovery of Jane, Jane and her dad educating Tarzan about the outside world, and a segement focusing on the comic-relief animal characters voiced by Rosie O'Donnell and Wayne Knight (Newman from Seinfeld). Rosie aside, it's obvious that they have a hell of a lot of respect for Edgar Rice Burroughs (animator Gil Keane spoke about how Tarzan's physique was designed to reflect feats ERB has Tarzan pulling off, reading from TARZAN OF THE APES to provide examples, in addition to reading from a 1936 letter from ERB to his son in which Burroughs described his desire for an animated TARZAN movie, as he didn't think live action could do his creation justice) and I think Burroughs fans will be pleasantly surprised. The film, surprisingly, is *not* a musical (at least in the conventional sense)--the Phil Collins songs are all sung by Collins himself and accompany the action on the soundtrack instead of being sung by the characters. Collins has provided five songs for the movie, four with lyrics, the fifth being an all-percussion instrumental (not that surprising, really, since Collins *is* a drummer). The instrumental accompanies a scene where Rosie (an ape) Knight (an elephant) and other animals inadvertently tear up Dr. Porter's camp as they explore it. Anyone worried about having to sit through a song sung by Rosie can rest easy. The action stuff (Tarzan zipping through trees, one fight scene) was simply amazing, and it looks like the cute stuff is gonna be relatively subdued. As you may have read in VARIETY, Collins has recorded his songs in several languages--French, German, Italian and Spanish (in both Latin American *and* Castillian, no less) for the dubbed prints for the world markets. All told, then, we'll be seeing *four* terrific-looking animated films from Disney in a span of less than 12 months (June 1999-->May 2000). It'll be interesting to see if the market will support so many, but if any of them flop, it doesn't look as if poor quality will be to blame. The following is an exerpt for Ain't-It-Cool-News "The storyline (holes were intentionally left, but this is all we were told):

A respectable family living in the African jungle are savaged by a vicious leopard (Sabor), leaving only a small baby alive in the tree house (that’ll be Tarzan then). A motherly ape (Kala Glenn Close) finds the wrecked homestead and the little baby. They immediately have a bond, she fights Sabor off when he returns and takes the child back to the dark part of the jungle where the apes live.

The apish leader Kerchak (Lance Henriksen) doesn’t approve of the human until when he’s about 20 and saves Kerchak from an attack by Sabor.

Enter Jane (Minnie Driver), with her old exploring dad Porter (Nigel Hawthorne) and their evil guide Clayton (Brian Blessed). Jane upsets a baby baboon when she draws it, and gets attacked by a whole gang of Baboons... enter the now grown up Tarzan. His movement is the result of detailed study of surfers and skateboarders, and he slides around brilliantly. He saves her, then returns her to the camp. Falls in love with Jane, finds out that he really is human and is then left with the dilemma of going back to England with her or staying.

Clayton the guard has other ideas, and locks the three in the ship, leaving the apes (including sister Rosie O’Donnell) and chicken elephant Tantor (Wayne Knight) to save him.

Kerchak was going to be played by Harrison Ford but it has now been cast to Lance Henrickson

In Tarzan, the animation department is using a new Deep Canvas process giving the backgrounds depth but still containing the traditional hand painted look.

In an interview Peter Shneider (president of Walt Disney Feature Animation) said:"(about Tarzan) I think we'll do it unlike anyone's ever done it before , You will actuallly see the bonding between man and the apes. It also really explores the issues of Where do I fit in? What is my family? is it the people who bring me up, or those I born to look like?" Also he said Tarzan will be a more dramatic and serious film, "more adult oriented" As far as I know Walt Disney MovieToons division was going to use the Tarzan story in a comedic adaptation with the character of Goofy as Lord Goofstroke but the Walt Disney Company opted instead for a Feature emphasazing Edgar Rice Burroughs' original vision, expressed in "Tarzan of the Apes" . The creators of the film are trying to be very realistic with the animal characters, so don't expect dancing apes and lions everywhere, animator Glen Keane is also trying to incorporate animal mannerisms in the character of Tarzan Of course there will be some comedic relief provided by Rosie O' Donell character, Terkoz (who will even sing one of Phil Collins tunes) and Tantor the elephant with the voice of Wayne Knight, but there will be more dramatic and emotional moments than funny ones, also I don't think the adult Tarzan will sing in the movie, that goes for other characters. But we'll have to wait till the summer of 1999 to see the final results.

In a September issue of Entertainment Weekly, there is a article saying that Disney originally wanted to cast comedian Chris Rock as the voice of Kerchak but he declined because he thought that being a voice of a monkey was a big insult for him. So, Kerchak has now been cast to be played by no one else than Harrison Ford.

On Thursday, July 31- On the Rosie O'Donnel show Rosie O'Donnel spoke about her Tazan character named Turk. She gave a full description about a scene she was involved in and then went on about the recording. Rosie O'Donnel said she was singing one of the films songs!!! All those that saw the show said that it sounded really good. She also said that how Phil Collins is afraid people will think he is trying to be Elton John, but his stuff a lot different. The song Rosie O'Donnel sang sounded more like something from "Jungle Book."

The film will sport computer generated 3-D jungle backgrounds around the traditionally-drawn characters.

Disney has said that this version on Burroughs' legendary character will emphasize the author's original vision. This can be taken as more of a serious, or even 'mature' take on the Tarzan mythos.

The development artwork has been said to be fantastic. It was also heard that Tarzan promises to be a bit more adult although there seems to be a little cute elephant character. (Info supplied by lucien hoare)

Disney has acquired the rights to this Edgar Rice Bourroughs character for an animated feature.