There's an expression at the Disney studio's – "sweat box session" – that originated decades ago when Walt Disney sat in on the rushes of the latest cartoon and offered his comments. This was well before the advent of air conditioning, and the screening room quiekly became a sauna; a sweat box if you will.
Today, the room can get just as hot – the intensity of viewing a new animated work in progress at Disney can still be an explosive, feverish experience.
The latest film to create this friction is THE BLACK CAULDRON, a rousing $20 million, animated sword and sorcery tale planned for a 1985 release, which could be the first film ever to project 3-D holograms into an audience. The film's producer, Joe Hale; directors, Art Stevens, Ted Berman and Rick Rich; and writers Dave Jonas, Roy Morita and Al Wilson sit confidently (but perhaps a bit nervously) in the screening room – waiting for their creation to ignite on the screen.
The film is based on Lloyd Alexander's five-book adventure series, The Pyrdain Chronicles, which consist of The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer and The High King. Alexander originally wrote these novels for adolescents; his stories are filled with mysticism and action but contain little bloodshed. Disney's film won't have much gore either, but the studio hopes to garner a larger and more adult audience.
Joe Hale gives a quick run-through of the plot: the cauldron of the title is in the possession of the evil Horned King who immerses his dead enemies in it. Later, they emerge as the invincible, soulless Cauldron Born Warriors. With his army of the dead, the Horned King plans to conquer the peaceful land of Pyrdain. The wicked wizard, however, must perform a human sacrifice before each full moon in order to maintain the life of his arnmy and the cauldron.
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