List of lost or unfinished animated films

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The following is a list of lost or unfinished animated films.

1890s[edit]

Year Film Director Country Notes
1892 Un bon bock Émile Reynaud France Painted in 1888, it was first screened on 28 October 1892 using the Théâtre Optique process, which allowed him to project a hand-painted colored film, before the invention of cinematograph. No copy exists, as Reynaud threw all but two of his picture bands into the Seine river as he was suffering of depression at that time.[1]

1900s[edit]

Year Film Director Country Notes
1908 The Humpty Dumpty Circus J. Stuart Blackton and

Albert E. Smith

United States Claimed by Smith to be the first film to use stop motion animation, though the claim has been disputed.

1910s[edit]

Year Film Director Country Notes
1917 Kaiser Álvaro Marins Brazil A short film, considered the first cartoon produced in Brazil.[2]
1917 Imokawa Mukuzo Genkanban no Maki Ōten Shimokawa Japan Once considered to be the first professional Japanese animated film ever made.[3][4]
1917 El Apóstol Quirino Cristiani Argentina Historians consider it the world's first animated feature film. The film was destroyed in a 1926 fire in Valle's studio.
1918 Urashima Tarō Seitaro Kitayama Japan Was thought to have been discovered at a flea market at the Shitennō-ji temple in Osaka in 2007, but the discovered film later turned out to be another unknown work because a plot description and a series of stills of the 1918 film that differed considerably from the discovered film were found in a contemporary magazine.[5]
1918 Sin dejar rastros Quirino Cristiani Argentina A feature film using cutout animation.

1920s[edit]

Year Film Director Country Notes
1922 Die Grundlagen der Einsteinschen Relativitäts-Theorie Hanns Walter Kornblum Germany A partly animated documentary film created with the goal of bringing Einstein's theory of relativity to the broad public. Part of the film was used to create Max Fleischer's The Einstein Theory of Relativity. As part of the research carried out by the 3sat station, an English copy of the film was filmed in 2005 with the British Film Institute, which was provided with English and English language interludes and "speech bubbles". However, the original version of the film is lost.
1923 Martha Walt Disney United States A short film made as part of the Laugh-O-Grams series.[6] It is the only film in the Laugh-O-Gram series that is presumed lost.
1923 Firpo-Dempsey Quirino Cristiani Argentina A 1923 animated short, directed by Quirino Cristiani. It is a parody of the boxing match between Jack Dempsey and Argentine boxer Luis Ángel Firpo. At the time the picture was very popular with Argentinean audiences.[7]
1926 Uproar in the Studio Wan Laiming and Wan Guchan China The short film helped the Wan brothers become recognized as the pioneers of the animation industry in China.
1928 The Prince and the Swan Fairy
Királyfi és a Hattyútündér
János Halász Hungary One of Hungary's earliest animated films.[8] Only a few fragments of this experimental animation remain.[9]

1930s[edit]

Year Film Director Country Notes
1931 Peludópolis Quirino Cristiani Argentina The film was released with a Vitaphone sound-on-disc synchronization system soundtrack, making the film generally credited as the first animated feature film with sound.
1933 Chikara to Onna no Yo no Naka Kenzō Masaoka Japan The first Japanese anime of any type to feature voiceovers.[10][11][12]
1933–36 The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman Balda Mikhail and Vera Tsekhanovskaya Soviet Union Would have been the Soviet Union's first traditionally animated feature film, but it was abandoned shortly before its completion due to various production difficulties. Most of the film was lost in World War II, with only two and a half minutes surviving.
1936 The Adventures of Pinocchio Raoul Verdini

Umberto Spano

Italy Was supposed to be Italy's first animated feature, but it was never finished and is now thought to be lost. Only the script and a few still images survive.
1936–39 St. Francis: Dreams and Nightmares Berthold Bartosch France Berthold Bartosch worked on this feature film in Paris until he fled the city in anticipation of Nazi occupation during World War II. He left the unfinished film at the Cinémathèque Française upon fleeing, but it was destroyed during the occupation. Less than 30 minutes of the film had been completed when it was destroyed. Only a few still images survive.

1960s[edit]

Year Film Director Country Notes
1960s–1990s The Thief and the Cobbler Richard Williams U.S./U.K./Canada Film was taken away from director Richard Williams and released as The Princess and the Cobbler in South Africa and Australia and Arabian Knight in North America; heavily edited versions with much of the already-filmed footage cut out. Unofficial restorations of the original film are available.

1970s[edit]

Year Film Director Country Notes
1970s–1980s The Works Lance Williams US It was meant to be the first computer-animated feature, but was never completed.

1980s[edit]

Year Film Director Country Notes
1983 Roy del espacio Hector López Carmona, Rafael Ángel Gil and Ulises Pérez Aguirre Mexico One of the first feature-length Mexican animated films ever made.[13][14] Only still images from the film are known to survive.[15]
1986 Train Arrival
Прибытие поезда (Pribytiye poyezda)
Aleksandr Tatarskiy Soviet Union A watercolor-animated feature film begun in 1986 by Aleksandr Tatarskiy – part of the reason for the formation of PILOT Studio, the first private animation studio in the U.S.S.R.. About 40 minutes were finished before hyper-inflation hit Russia in the economic crisis of the late 1990s. The unfinished film was highly praised by several masters of Russian animation who saw it (including Fyodor Khitruk, Yuriy Norshteyn, Eduard Nazarov, Igor Kovalyov and others), before the film materials were lost to three consecutive floods in late 2005.[16][17]

1990s[edit]

Year Film Director Country Notes
1991 Treasures under a mountain or The Hobbit / Сокровища под Горой Russia 1991: The Argus International Animation Studio began to work on this animated movie, based on The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, but soon after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the project was cancelled, and only six minutes were completed.[18]

2000s[edit]

Year Film Director Country Notes
2000 CyberWorld Colin Davies

Elaine Despins

United States A 2000 American 3D[19] animated anthology film shown in IMAX and IMAX 3D, presented by Intel. The film was cited as the first 3D animated film presented in IMAX, as presented on its website. There are no plans to release the film on home video as of 2023.
2005 Empress Chung Nelson Shin South Korea
North Korea
Since the initial release, aside from few screenings across Europe, the film did not get an international theatrical release or home media release. Nowadays, the only things related to the film that are online is the trailer, sound test animation, some screenshots[20] and a collection of children's books.[21] There has been some evidence to suggest that it was released on DVD in North Korea, but nothing conclusive.[22][23]
2007 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood
ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 ファントムブラッド (JoJo no Kimyō na Bōken Fantomu Buraddo)
Japan Based on Part 1 of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure manga series, Phantom Blood. The film was released on February 17, 2007, to commemorate JoJo author Hirohiko Araki's 20th year of publishing. Animation was handled by Studio A.P.P.P. The film had a limited screening in Japanese theaters. While the film remains unreleased on home video, several dozen screenshots exist, as well as roughly 18 minutes of footage in the form of two trailers and a 16-minute collection of various scenes without dialogue. The collection surfaced online in 2012 after allegedly being given out to an Academy of Art University student by their professor (who apparently had connections to those who worked on the film) as part of a sound design project.

2010s[edit]

Year Film Director Country Notes
2011–2012 The Power of Zhu/The Secret of Zhu/Journey to GloE US/Canada Cepia LLC created The Dream Garden Company for 4 films[24] with distribution by Universal Pictures.[25] On September 27, 2011, the ZhuZhu Pets franchise first full-length feature film Quest for Zhu was released straight-to-DVD. A second full-length feature film, The Power of Zhu, probably in the works and has a trailer,[26] potentially being released on DVD sometime in 2012 as well as a third film The Secret of Zhu that featured the voices of Brad Garrett and Ken Jeong[27] and fourth film Journey to GloE.[28] However, as of February 2014, no other films or even plans for films have been released for The Power of Zhu, although it was completed and was "secretly distributed" to TV stations in France and Brazil under the title Amazing Adventures of Zhu.[29][30]
2010s Poe Michael Sporn US Animator Michael Sporn was producing and directing an animated feature based the life of Edgar Allan Poe when he died in January 2014.[31]

2020s[edit]

Year Film Director Country Notes
2020 Kukuriraige: Sanxingdui Fantasy Fumikazu Satou Japan Originally set for release on February 7, 2020 alongside the Jewelpet Attack Travel! anime film,[32][33] it was eventually delayed indefinitely due to production issues.[34][35] Attack Travel! would later get a standalone release during a Niconico livestream on May 14, 2022. During that livestream, it was confirmed that Kukurirauge would not be released at any point in the foreseeable future.
2022 Scoob! Holiday Haunt Bill Haller and Michael Kurinsky United States Originally scheduled for a December 2022 release on HBO MAX, it was canceled by Warner Bros. Discovery before in August 2022, citing cost-cutting measures and a refocus on theatrical films rather than creating projects for streaming.[36][37]
2023 Coyote vs. Acme Dave Green US In August 2018, Warner Bros. Pictures announced the development of a Wile E. Coyote project, titled Coyote vs. Acme, with The Lego Batman Movie director Chris McKay as producer and Jon and Josh Silberman writing the screenplay and Will Forte cast as Wile E. Coyote.[38] The film was originally scheduled to be theatrically released in the United States on July 21, 2023, by Warner Bros. Pictures.[39] On April 26, 2022, it was taken off the release schedule with Barbie taking over its original release date.[40] On November 9, 2023, it was announced that even though the film had been completed, it was shelved with the company taking an approximately $30 million tax write-off.[41]

On December 8, Deadline Hollywood further reported that the film had been screened for more studios including Paramount Pictures and Sony Pictures. Of these, Netflix and Paramount have made bids, with the latter including a theatrical component; Amazon is still interested despite making no formal bids; and Sony and Apple are not planning to make bids. Since then, no new distributor officially won the rights to the film.[42] On February 9, 2024, TheWrap reported that Warner Bros. has rejected the bids from Netflix, Amazon MGM Studios and Paramount Pictures. Warner Bros. wanted $75-$80 million to sell the film, but the bidders couldn't come up with that, so a Warner Bros. executive said that because of all the problems with this film, Warner Bros. wants to end with this problems and won't sell the film, but will be make this film to a tax loss.[43]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Charles-Émile Reynaud". Who's Who of Victorian Cinema. Retrieved 2007-03-11.
  2. ^ Animação pioneira satiriza imperador e apoia serviço militar. Almanaque Brasil
  3. ^ "Historic 91-year-old anime discovered in Osaka". Archived from the original on April 2, 2008. Retrieved May 12, 2008.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  4. ^ "Two Nine-Decade-Old Anime Films Discovered (Updated)". Anime News Network. Retrieved 5 July 2013.
  5. ^ Watanabe, Yasushi (July 2017). 北山清太郎制作『浦島太郎』の新資料発見について (PDF). NFC Newsletter (in Japanese) (132). National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo: 12.
  6. ^ Lenburg, Jeff (2009). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons (3rd ed.). New York: Checkmark Books. p. 35. ISBN 978-0-8160-6600-1.
  7. ^ Bendazzi, Giannalberto (6 November 2017). Twice the First: Quirino Cristiani and the Animated Feature Film. CRC Press. ISBN 9781351371797.
  8. ^ Orosz, Anna Ida and Orosz, Márton. Vissza a szülőföldre! – I. rész – Halász János – John Halas Archived 2015-05-12 at the Wayback Machine. FilmKultura. 2011.
  9. ^ Orosz, Márton. Vissza a szülőföldre! / Back to the Homeland! Archived 2012-09-13 at the Wayback Machine. 10th Kecskeméti Animáció Film Fesztivál (KAFF) 2011. ISBN 978-963-08-1576-5
  10. ^ Baricordi, Andrea (December 2000). Anime: A Guide to Japanese Animation (1958–1988). Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Protoculture Inc. p. 12. ISBN 2-9805759-0-9.
  11. ^ Sharp, Jasper (23 September 2004). "Pioneers of Japanese Animation". Midnight Eye: The Latest and Best in Japanese Cinema. Retrieved 20 May 2009.
  12. ^ Japan: An Illustrated Encyclopedia. Tokyo, Japan: Kodansha. 1993. ISBN 978-4-06-206489-7.
  13. ^ Riera, Emilio García; Macotela, Fernando (1984). La guía del cine mexicano de la pantalla grande a la televisión, 1919–1984 (in Spanish). Editorial Patria. p. 269. ISBN 968-39-0029-1. Archived from the original on 15 August 2022. Retrieved 15 August 2022. Largometraje de dibujos animados, cuarto en la historia del cine mexicano.
  14. ^ "México se anima con Magos y Gigantes". El Siglo de Torreón (in Spanish). 17 November 2003. Archived from the original on 15 August 2022. Retrieved 15 August 2022.
  15. ^ Leal, Carlos (2022). El Caricaturiscopio (in Spanish). Grijalbo (Penguin Random House). ISBN 978-607-319-432-7. Archived from the original on 15 August 2022. Retrieved 15 August 2022.
  16. ^ МАЛЮКОВА, Лариса (October 23, 2003). "ПЛАСТИЛИНОВЫЙ КЛОУН". Animator.ru. Retrieved December 5, 2011.
  17. ^ "Тет-а-тет Мультимиллионеры". Business Magazine. March 14, 2006. Archived from the original on October 3, 2011. Retrieved December 5, 2011.
  18. ^ The finished portion of the Russian Hobbit
  19. ^ Cyberworld 3D (2000) – Turner Classic Movies
  20. ^ "왕후심청 Empress Chung (Wang-hu Shim-cheong)". KMDb (in Korean). Retrieved October 6, 2019.
  21. ^ "알라딘: 검색결과 '왕후심청'" [Aladin: Search results 'Empress Simcheong']. Aladin (in Korean). Archived from the original on January 15, 2021. Retrieved January 15, 2021.
  22. ^ "North Korea Animation". North Korean Films. March 8, 2012. Retrieved October 7, 2019.
  23. ^ "SEKs and The Lion King Mystery". North Korean Films. June 23, 2012. Retrieved January 15, 2021.
  24. ^ "Cepia – Zhu Zhu Pets". www.cepia.com. Retrieved 2022-09-02.
  25. ^ "Universal Pictures and Cepia LLC join forces for first-ever ZhuZhu Pets® global Marketing and Distribution DVD and TV Alliance" (PDF). 2016-08-18. Archived from the original on 18 August 2016. Retrieved 2023-03-01.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  26. ^ The Power Of Zhu Trailer (Better Quality) (Cancelled ZhuZhu Pets Movie), retrieved 2022-09-01
  27. ^ Hulu 2 – ZhuZhu Pets "Secret of Zhu", retrieved 2022-09-01
  28. ^ "Journey to GloE". Splash Entertainment. Retrieved 2022-09-01.
  29. ^ Gardner, Eriq (August 3, 2015). "Universal Sued for "Secretly" Distributing Children's Film Overseas". Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2 January 2018. Through its own investigation, Cepia learned that Universal International had distributed the Amazing Adventures of Zhu to at least two television broadcasters without Cepia's knowledge or approval." Cepia adds that the "unilateral actions were especially harmful" because the television airings in Brazil and France "destroyed the potential DVD/Blu-Ray market" and further, "led to its availability on the Internet for free download.
  30. ^ MoonScoop, Dreamgarden, Zhu-Zhu Pets The Power of Zhu Full Movie (English Dub), retrieved 2022-09-01
  31. ^ Animator Michael Sporn, an Oscar Nominee, Dies at 67
  32. ^ "『ジュエルペット』の新作アニメが2020年2月に劇場公開決定! | アニメイトタイムズ". 『ジュエルペット』の新作アニメが2020年2月に劇場公開決定! | アニメイトタイムズ (in Japanese). Retrieved 2022-08-16.
  33. ^ "Sanrio's New Jewelpet Anime Film & Kukuriraige Film to Open in February". Anime News Network. Retrieved 2022-08-16.
  34. ^ Inc, Natasha. "劇場アニメ「ジュエルペット」「ククリレイジュ」の公開が延期に". コミックナタリー (in Japanese). Retrieved 2022-08-16. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  35. ^ "Sanrio Delays New Jewelpet Anime Film's Opening". Anime News Network. Retrieved 2022-08-16.
  36. ^ Couch, Aaron (August 2, 2022). "'Batgirl' and 'Scoob!: Holiday Haunt' Scrapped at Warner Bros. Amid Cost-Savings Push". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved August 2, 2022.
  37. ^ "Scoob! Sequel Shelved By HBO Max".
  38. ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (August 28, 2018). "Warner Bros' Wile E. Coyote Movie Finds Its Scribes In The Silberman Brothers". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on March 12, 2022. Retrieved March 12, 2022.
  39. ^ Cite error: The named reference Gunn was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  40. ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (April 26, 2022). "Barbie Heads To Summer 2023 – CinemaCon". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on April 26, 2022. Retrieved 26 April 2022.
  41. ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (November 9, 2023). "'Coyote Vs. Acme': Finished Live/Action Animated Pic Shelved Completely By Warner Bros As Studio Takes $30M Tax Write-off". Deadline. Retrieved November 9, 2023.
  42. ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (2023-12-08). "Coyote Vs. Acme: Paramount Circling; Amazon Still Possible Contender – The Dish". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 2023-12-08.
  43. ^ Taylor, Drew (2024-02-09). "The Final Days of 'Coyote vs. Acme': Offers, Rejections and a Roadrunner Race Against Time | Exclusive". TheWrap. Retrieved 2024-02-09.