Last month, Walt Disney Studios Animation celebrated 100 years. The studio has marked this milestone in various ways ranging from the short film Once Upon a Studio to the upcoming animated feature, Wish. ComicBook.com recently had the chance to chat with Wish producers Peter Del Vecho and Juan Pablo Reyes Lancaster Jones as well as directors Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn. We asked both duos if they celebrated Disney’s anniversary in a special way.
Videos by ComicBook.com
“Oh, absolutely,” Lancaster Jones shared. “And they actually had a very cool celebration here at the studio, and I think it’s really cool that the studio is really embracing the movie Wish as kind of like the jewel of the celebration because we really worked hard to create something that evoked Disney emotionally. So words like ‘hope’ and ‘joy.’ So yeah, to me, I think Wish is our way to celebrate.”
“I think, yeah, the whole making of this movie for us was a celebration,” Del Vecho added. “Everybody wanted to be a part of it. Everybody wanted to contribute to this movie. It literally was a joy for us to all work on this project.”
“We had a little thing across the lot,” Buck explained. “There was a 100th celebration just a few weeks ago, and everybody could sign this big kind of fairytale book. And this is just a personal thing, and I wrote on it, it was to Walt, and I said, ‘Thank you for making my life so magical.’ Yeah, because a lot of people say, ‘Thank you for making my childhood so magical.’ And I’m like, no, he made my whole life magical.”
“Well, this year we got to visit Walt’s original office across the street, and I don’t know why I have never been there before and that was my first time and I was like, ‘How fitting?’ This is the 100th year, and this man who has started it all had worked here,” Veerasunthorn added. “All the stuff on the wall and in the office. This feels, this energy of someone who had persevered throughout, against all odds, and was able to create this animated feature-length film that everyone came to see at the time when people were like, ‘That’s never going to work.’ And he started this studio that had brought so much joy to the world.”
You can watch the interviews at the top of the page.
What Is Wish About?
You can read the official synopsis for Wish below:
In Wish, Asha, a sharp-witted idealist, makes a wish so powerful that it is answered by a cosmic force—a little ball of boundless energy called Star. Together, Asha and Star confront a most formidable foe—the ruler of Rosas, King Magnifico—to save her community and prove that when the will of one courageous human connects with the magic of the stars, wondrous things can happen. Featuring the voices of Academy Award®-winning actor Ariana DeBose as Asha, Chris Pine as Magnifico, and Alan Tudyk as Asha’s favorite goat, Valentino, the film is helmed by Oscar®-winning director Chris Buck (Frozen, Frozen 2) and Fawn Veerasunthorn (Raya and the Last Dragon), produced by Peter Del Vecho (Frozen, Frozen 2) and co-produced by Juan Pablo Reyes (Encanto).
Jennifer Lee (Frozen, Frozen 2) executive produces — Lee and Allison Moore (Night Sky, Manhunt) are writers on the project. With original songs by Grammy®-nominated singer/songwriter Julia Michaels and Grammy-winning producer/songwriter/musician Benjamin Rice, plus a score by composer Dave Metzger.
Stay tuned for more from our interviews from Wish, which opens only in theaters on November 22nd.
