This Cancelled Pixar Movie Wouldve Been Its First LiveAction Project
With 27 feature films released over nearly three decades, Pixar is firmly established as a leading provider of premium entertainment. Founded in the 1970s as a division of Lucasfilm, the film company is synonymous with animation, so it might be hard to imagine the company venturing into live-action films. But it was halfway through when Pixar announced plans to partner with Disney and Warner Bros. in the adaptation of the historical novel by James Dallesandro "1906" .
A detailed account of the various people and events, both real and imagined, that took place in San Francisco in 1906, the year of the novel's title, was a very ambitious task. Brad Bird , the acclaimed writer and director of Pixar's The Incredibles and Ratatouille , has been hired to helm the project, and as with Pixar, it will be his first foray into live-action filmmaking. But after years of hard work with tight budgets and an unwieldy script, development stopped in 1906 and remains in place today.
What is the movie 1906 about?
At 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck the San Andreas fault. The earthquake, which stretched about 270 miles across California, caused particular devastation in San Francisco. In addition, the city burned for four days, destroying hundreds of city blocks and 28,000 buildings. In total, the disaster cost about $350 million (more than $11 billion in 2023 dollars) and claimed about 3,000 lives. Devastating and poignant on a massive scale, the event will serve as a historical lens through which to view the vast collection of characters and narratives in James Delessandro's novel. The 1906 investigation into crime, corruption and politics debuted in 2004 and has been described as a "creative and dense interplay of fact and fiction".
Originated 1906 as a film
Long before he wrote the novel, James Dalessandro envisioned 1906 as a film. At the request of his manager, the author started working on the adaptation in 1998. Production companies included Barry Levinson and Paul Weinstein's Baltimore/Spring Creek Productions and DreamWorks, which eventually moved to Warner Bros. Although the novel was not published until six years later. later, its development as a turn-of-the-millennium film was well under way, when Dallesandro developed several concepts and eventually caught the attention of Disney/Pixar. Working simultaneously, Warner Bros. was to finance his live-action footage, and Disney/Pixar provided the footage.
After the huge success of "The Incredibles" in 2004, Brad Bird was asked to adapt "1906" . As a director who had never made a feature film before, his hiring may have confused some in Tinseltown, but Bird showed great enthusiasm for the project and began writing the script. The film's historical setting was a moment of particular fascination for the filmmakers, as Western civilization found itself at the crossroads of the old and the new in a technological revolution. Byrd said of the era: “Before the earthquake, San Francisco was a real town, somewhere between the Old West and the middle of the 20th century. So it was that interesting moment in history where gas lighting, electric lighting and cars coexisted. and horses co-existed.'
In 2007, while promoting Ratatouille in the UK, Brad Bird was optimistic about the situation in 1906 . Calling the project his first film venture, he told a reporter: “I started working on a feature film a few years before Ratatouille , so I'm coming back and I'm very excited. an idea I'm still in awe of it. I don't want to say too much about it." But that's the last movie buffs will hear about 1906 for a long time. A few years later, Byrd turned the cameras on what would become his first feature: Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol So what happened in 1906 ?
Stall Development '1906'
There has been much talk about the scale of the proposed film and why it was not made. From a funding perspective, those hoping to see this happen will be disappointed. The once-common reluctance of studios to spend big on films that aren't sequels, remakes, or adaptations of popular intellectual property rights is likely to be a major setback for a project like 1906 . Francisco to Life, and undoubtedly with the many technical difficulties of recreating the deadliest earthquake in American history, the film may have suffered from sky-high budgets (reportedly in the $200 million range) and major logistical challenges. Although it is purely speculative, the idea of such an ambitious and complex film, shot by a novice director, could also influence the course of events in 1906 .
But it wasn't just the film's budget that became so unpredictable, as Brad Bird confirmed when he talked about the problems he faced when writing the script. In 2018, more than a decade after the announcement of the project and the release of the sequel "The Incredibles 2 ", the director said: "I love movies and I want an earthquake on the big screen, and yet I understand that the story is so big, so I try to do it as a combination and people are kind of interested, I'm still interested, but I want it to be done in a way that covers all the possibilities and still around or have something... not a part or something on the big screen, so we'll see what happens."
Given that we've long been blessed with a new Golden Age of television, it's surprising that the transition from the silver 1906 to the small screen is worth pondering. While cinema offers a visual and aural experience unmatched by television, there is no denying that the longer miniseries format will allow a larger story to breathe, allowing for a broader, truer and more fully narrative experience. Bird explains: “If you put it in a movie-sized box, it's too big for the story. When you do it for television, you lose the scale of the film, so I try to fit it into those two worlds."
Will we ever see '1906'?
By this time, 1906 was progressing slowly. But for the sake of optimism, it can be argued that some developments in the entertainment industry may one day contribute to its revival. Since first working on adaptations, Brad Bird has proven that he is more than capable of making ambitious live-action films with 2013's Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol and The Day After Tomorrow, dispelling any possible doubt and hesitation of big studios out of the way. .
And with the advent of streaming services, some of which are increasingly taking on big-budget, large-scale films and TV series, an epic like 1906 can certainly be a contender for such efforts. Filled with scope, intrigue and historical research, it seems to be filled with distinctive qualities that unite audiences. Although he has been talking about it publicly for years, Byrd's passion for the project is clear. “I am still in awe of this story. Prosecute. I'm still interested, but I want it to be done in a way that covers all possibilities."
