Fantasia 2000

***Fantasia 2000*** is a 2000 American animated movie. It was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is a sequel to _Fantasia_ (1940). Like the original movie, it has animated segments set to pieces of classical music. _The Sorcerer's Apprentice_ is the only segment that is in both movies. In fact, Fantasia 2000 was Disney's last animated anthology movie to date.

The soundtrack was performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with conductor James Levine. A group of celebrities introduce each segment in live-action scenes. The celebrities include Steve Martin, Itzhak Perlman, Quincy Jones, Bette Midler, James Earl Jones, Penn & Teller, James Levine, and Angela Lansbury.

_Fantasia 2000_ was shown at Carnegie Hall on December 17, 1999. It was part of a five-city concert tour, with performances in London, Paris, Tokyo and Pasadena, California. An exclusive release in IMAX theatres followed from January 1 to April 30, 2000. It became Disney's first animated feature-length movie in the IMAX format and the first animated movie in the format overall. _Fantasia 2000_ was opened in the United States on June 16, 2000. It has earned $90.8 million in gross revenue worldwide.

Fantasia 2000 was 1 of 2 Disney animated anthology movies released under the rating system, along with The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

Fantasia 2000 was the first Disney animated movie to be released on home video in the same year as it's theatrical release.

## _Rhapsody in Blue_

_Rhapsody in Blue_ is the first _Fantasia_ segment with music from the American composer George Gershwin. It originated in 1995, when director and animator Eric Goldberg approached Al Hirschfeld about the idea of an animated short set to Gershwin's composition in the style of Hirschfeld's illustrations. Hirschfeld agreed to serve as artistic consultant and allowed the animators to use and adapt his previous works for the segment. Goldberg's wife Susan was art director. Duke is named after jazz artist Duke Ellington. The bottom of his toothpaste tube reads "NINA", an Easter egg referencing Hirschfeld's daughter Nina. Rachel was designed after the Goldbergs' daughter and John is based on animation historian and author John Culhane and Hirschfeld's caricature of Alexander Woollcott. Goldberg took Hirschfeld's original illustration of Gershwin and animated it to make him play the piano. Featured in the crowd emerging from the hotel are depictions of Brooks Atkinson and Hirschfeld, along with his wife Dolly Haas. The segment was completed five months ahead of schedule from December 14, 1998 to May 8, 1999. The animators from the production hiatus of _Kingdom of the Sun_ were reassigned to work on the segment. Despite this, the sequence was so chromatically complex that the rendering process using the CAPS system delayed work on _Tarzan_.

## Infobox (film)

- **name**: Fantasia 2000
- **producer**: Donald W. Ernst
- **cinematography**: Tim Suhrstedt
- **distributor**: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
- **runtime**: 74 minutes
- **country**: United States
- **language**: English
- **budget**: $80–$85 million
- **gross**: $90.9 million