Walt Disney badly wanted the original Fantasia<\/em> to be an event film, at a time long before multiplexes were the norm in major American cities. One of the ways in which he achieved this effect for Fantasia<\/em> was via Fantasound, which was a particular method of recording the orchestra that would create a similar feeling for audiences who attended the film. But the peculiarities of this method of recording weren\u2019t easy to adopt in movie houses of the era. When the film premiered in November of 1940, it did so via a 13-theater roadshow across the country, and 12 of those venues <\/a>weren\u2019t even movie theaters, just reconverted playhouses. The amount of money involved in setting these theaters up the right way meant that Disney would only recoup its handsome investment decades later due to frequent re-releases (not even until after the man himself passed away in 1966).<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Disney executives in the 1990s decided to send Fantasia 2000<\/em> to IMAX, the large-screen format was best known for showing documentaries about nature and outer space. But both Roy Disney and executive Dick Cook grasped that showing Fantasia 2000<\/em> in IMAX would bestow upon it that same event status. (And fortunately, unlike with Fantasound, they didn\u2019t have to spend any additional money to retrofit theaters, since there were 75 IMAX theaters that could easily play the film every day.) If anything, it\u2019s all to the better that Fantasia 2000<\/em> was given this sense of epic scope and scale. Fantasia<\/em> is almost proudly unwilling to appeal to kids; outside of the iconic \u201cSorcerer\u2019s Apprentice\u201d segment, there\u2019s not a ton that immediately seems meant to cater to children, as even the extended \u201cRite of Spring\u201d sequence with the era of the dinosaurs is deliberately cold and unfeeling. Its sequel was different, and meant to appeal to all audiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The compare-and-contrast is easy enough. Fantasia<\/em> has just one segment featuring a pre-existing Disney character; Fantasia 2000<\/em> re-releases \u201cThe Sorcerer\u2019s Apprentice\u201d along with a new segment riffing on the Noah\u2019s Ark story with Donald and Daisy Duck. Fantasia<\/em> has no famous faces, just Deems Taylor as the aforementioned emcee. Fantasia 2000<\/em> has celebrity guests like Steve Martin, Bette Midler, the late Quincy Jones, and Penn and Teller. Fantasia<\/em> is 126 minutes long (making it one of the longest American-made animated films); Fantasia 2000<\/em> runs merely 75. But what the two films do share is a clear sense that these are unique, distinctive events. It\u2019s been 25 years since Fantasia 2000<\/em> premiered at Carnegie Hall, before rolling out at IMAX theaters across the country on New Year\u2019s Day 2000, and Disney has yet to top its singular quality. You can watch these films on Disney+, but you can\u2019t experience them correctly that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A quarter-century later, it\u2019s worth noting what Fantasia 2000<\/em> did for IMAX as a whole. Unlike its predecessor, Fantasia 2000<\/em> did pretty well for itself, making nearly $65 million just on IMAX screens over a four-month period, before opening at regular theaters later in 2000. What audiences learned was the possibility of being dwarfed by the screen for the right film. Now, it\u2019s become extremely common for mainstream movies to be shown in IMAX (including many films that weren\u2019t filmed with IMAX cameras), from the upcoming Mufasa: The Lion King<\/em> to a number of the Harry Potter<\/em> films to just about everything directed by Christopher Nolan. IMAX was a viable format before Fantasia 2000<\/em> came along, but audiences didn\u2019t quite pick up on how effective the large-screen style would be for fictional stories until this fusion of music and animation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Fantasia 2000” is streaming on Disney+<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/fantasia2-1024x617.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n