Even though a 1985 box office flop almost bankrupted Disney, this animated dark fantasy movie is ironically exactly the sort of project that the studio should now be focusing on in 2026. Disney’s upcoming live-action remake of Moana proves that the entertainment industry giant knows how to cash in on a popular property. From the Cars spinoff streaming shows to the sprawling Star Wars franchise, Disney has never struggled to capitalise on an existing hit by expanding its series.
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However, that doesn’t mean that the company has never faced major struggles at the box office, particularly with ambitious original titles that don’t meet the cultural moment. While it might be largely forgotten now, 2012’s John Carter was a massive catastrophe for Disney back when the live-action sci-fi adventure movie was released. Similarly, 1985’s animated fantasy adventure The Black Cauldron was supposed to be a major franchise for Disney, but the box office flop instead came close to killing the entire company.
The Black Cauldron Almost Bankrupt Disney Back in 1985
Disney bought the rights to author Lloyd Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain novel series back in 1973, but it took over a decade for the first movie in the planned franchise, 1985’s The Black Cauldron, to reach screens. This alone should have been a warning. However, it was the fact that The Black Cauldron was also Disney’s first animated movie to receive a PG rating, and still had to be heavily recut when its original ending proved too dark, that truly sank the animated effort.
Set in a mythical Middle Age kingdom, The Black Cauldron followed a hapless pig herder, Taran, and his beastly companion Gurgi as the pair took on the evil Horned King, a monstrous tyrant searching for the titular cauldron in hopes of taking over the world. Princess Eilonwy assisted Taran in his quest and the trio faced down the Horned King’s monstrous skeletal henchmen to stop his nefarious plot.
If that plot sounds as engaging and enjoyable as anything from Masters of the Universe, Dungeons and Dragons, or any other dark fantasy franchise from the ‘80s, that’s probably because The Black Cauldron is a lot of fun. The movie’s $44 million budget and infamously lengthy, troubled production process, complete with extensive recuts and additional animation, almost bankrupt Disney when The Black Cauldron earned a mere $12 million at the box office.
The Black Cauldron Has Everything That New Disney Movies Are Missing
This inevitably resulted in Disney’s new management scaling back the company’s focus on animated movies, but it doesn’t make the movie itself any less great. Like so many cult movie flops, The Black Cauldron is a great story in search of the right audience, and its genuinely dark, creepy villain makes the movie perfect fodder for a live-action remake. After all, there is a reason that the legendary critic Roger Ebert called The Black Cauldron “a rip-roaring tale of swords and sorcery… [with] some of the more memorable characters in any recent Disney film.”
While The Black Cauldron is imperfect, its grittier and more gruesome moments make the movie genuinely unpredictable, while Gurgi is one of Disney’s most underrated adorable animal sidekicks and Eilonwy arguably receives more agency in the story than many princesses in later Disney projects. Thus, if Disney really cared about telling memorable stories more than merely maximising profits, the studio would remake The Black Cauldron despite the original movie’s disastrous box office failure.
