(5 of 5)
Even if Disney is able to crush the insurrection, the company has already paid--in the defection of some animators and in the hyped prices it paid to retain its top talent. About time too, since animation directors were the only industry auteurs denied the Hollywood grail of profit sharing. A few animators are millionaires now, and frantic studios are wooing youngsters right out of art school with investment-banker salaries. "It's sure a novelty to have rich animators," says Jones, with the rueful laugh of a '40s ballplayer discussing today's $7 million infielders.
If the challenge to Disney is at all successful, it will at least mean a few more reliable multiplex babysitters a year for parents who fret about the lack of decent movies for their kids. It could mean more: a revitalizing of a beguiling film art that, for all the fine recent work from Disney, is in a state of genial stasis. But for that rainbow ending, animators will have to forget about beating Disney and start with an open mind, a sharp pencil and a blank sheet of paper. Is it too much to hope that someday the prince won't come or the princess won't go to Paris?
--Reported by Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles