The idea for a film about Atlantis dates back to 1992, when the Studio began internally developing a project on that legendary subject. In the fall of 1996, after completing work on "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," filmmakers Don Hahn, Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale turned their attention to their next project. The trio began discussing ideas for an animated film that would capture the flavor of the traditional Disney live- action adventure genre ("20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," "Swiss Family Robinson," "In Search of the Castaways," etc.) as well as such contemporary films as the "Indiana Jones" series. Over lunch one day at a local Mexican restaurant, the trio hatched an idea to take a journey to Atlantis.
Hahn observes, "We decided we wanted to bring back the great genre of action-adventure movies that Walt was famous for in the 1950s and that filmmakers like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg rejuvenated two decades ago with 'Star Wars,' 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' and others. We wanted to make a big wide-screen epic movie in animation. There's a whole land at Disneyland called Adventureland; so we decided, 'let's go there.' Instead of going down Main Street and through the castle to Fantasyland, where we've been so many times before (and thankfully so), we thought we'd make a turn left at the hub and go into Adventureland and have some fun there."
"We talked a lot about cool expedition stories and especially stories that took place underground involving lost worlds, lost civilizations and monsters," recalls Wise. "Eventually, we settled on the notion of a team of explorers finding the lost civilization of Atlantis. As we learned more about the subject, we found everything from the most carefully thought out and scientifically approached research to the most outlandish wacky far-out conjecture you could possibly think of. We found that if you mixed a little bit of science with a lot of crazy fantasy, we could end up with a real entertaining story that was actually somewhat rooted in history."
To help them prepare for the production, Hahn, Trousdale, Wise, art director Dave Goetz and the key artistic supervisors took several research trips. They went to the various museums to study World War I era clothing and machinery. The group toured submarines in Baltimore Harbor. At the U.S. Army Ordnance Museum in Maryland, they looked at old tanks and the biggest armored vehicle collection in the world. In New Mexico, they stopped at Carlsbad Caverns and went 800 feet underground to observe the subterranean trails that would provide inspiration for the approach to Atlantis in the film.
With two successful collaborations to their credit, producer Don Hahn and directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise have an enviable track record. Perhaps even more important than that, they have fun. Working together for over a decade, the trio have created a pair of the most memorable animated films of all-time and had a good time in the process.
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