What if Don Bluth stayed at Disney?/Anastasia

***Anastasia*** is a 1997 American animated musical fantasy historical drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and Amblin Entertainment and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, it stars Meg Ryan, John Cusack, Kelsey Grammer, Hank Azaria, Christopher Lloyd, Bernadette Peters, Kirsten Dunst, and Angela Lansbury. The 58th Disney animated feature and the 25th film released in the era known as the Disney Renaissance, the film is based on the legend of Grand Duchess Anastasia and follows an eighteen-year-old amnesiac Anastasia "Anya" Romanov who, hoping to find some trace of her deceased family, sides with two con men who wish to take advantage of her likeness to the Grand Duchess; thus the film shares its plot with 20th Century Fox's 1956 film of the same name, which, in turn, was based on the 1954 play of the same name by Marcelle Maurette. Unlike those treatments, this version adds a magically empowered Grigori Rasputin as the main antagonist.

*Anastasia* premiered in New York City on November 14, 1997, and was released theatrically in the United States on November 21. Critics praised the animation, voice performances, and soundtrack, though it attracted criticism from some historians for entertaining such a retelling of the Grand Duchess. *Anastasia* grossed $140 million worldwide, becoming Disney's most commercially successful film since *The Lion King* (1994). It received nominations for several awards, including for Best Original Song ("Journey to the Past") and Best Original Musical or Comedy Score at the 70th Academy Awards. The success of *Anastasia* spawned various adaptations of the film into other media, including a direct-to-video spin-off film, a computer game, books, toys, a 2016 stage musical. and a live-action adaptation which premiered on November 12, 2019 as a launch title for the Disney+ streaming service.

## Plot

In 1916 Petrograd, Russia, at a ball celebrating the Romanov tricentennial, Dowager Empress Marie bestows a music box and a necklace inscribed with the words "Together in Paris" as parting gifts to her youngest granddaughter, eight-year-old Grand Duchess Anastasia. The ball is suddenly interrupted by Grigori Rasputin, a sorcerer and former royal adviser exiled for treason, who vows to Tsar Nicholas that he will be banished with a curse. Consumed by his hatred for Nicholas, Rasputin sells his soul in exchange for a power upgrade to his unholy reliquary, which he uses to spark the Russian Revolution. As revolutionaries besiege the palace, Marie and Anastasia escape through a secret passageway, aided by 10-year-old servant boy Dimitri. Rasputin confronts the two royals outside on the frozen Little Nevka River, only to fall through the ice and drown. The pair manage to reach a moving train, but as Marie climbs aboard, Anastasia falls and hits her head on the platform, knocking her unconscious and subsequently developing amnesia.

Ten years later, Russia is under communist rule and Marie has publicly offered 10 million roubles for the safe return of her granddaughter. Now working as a conman, a grown Dimitri and his friend and partner Vlad Vasilovich search for an Anastasia look-alike to bring to Paris so they can collect the reward. Elsewhere, an 18-year-old Anastasia, now called "Anya", leaves the rural orphanage where she grew up and begins a search for her family, with her necklace as the only clue she has to finding them. Accompanied by a stray puppy she names Pooka, she decides to head to Paris, inspired by the inscription on her necklace, but finds herself unable to leave the Soviet Union without an exit visa. An old woman advises her to see Dimitri at the abandoned palace. There, the two men are impressed by Anya's resemblance to the "real" Anastasia, and decide to take her with them to Paris, completely unaware of her identity.

Watching the meeting from his perch, Rasputin's albino bat minion Bartok notices his master's dormant reliquary suddenly revived by Anya's presence. It drags him down to limbo, where he finds an undead Rasputin confined. Enraged to hear that Anastasia escaped the curse, Rasputin sends his demonic minions from the reliquary to kill her. The demons sabotage the trio's train by overheating the engine and separating it and its ruined baggage car from the rest of the train as they leave Leningrad, but the trio manages to escape before the burning locomotive and baggage car fall through a broken bridge and explode on the ground below.

Later, the demons try to lure Anya into sleepwalking off their ship to France. The trio unwittingly foil both attempts, forcing Rasputin and Bartok to travel back to the surface to kill Anya personally. During their journey, as Dimitri and Vladimir teach Anya court etiquette and her family's history, Dimitri and Anya begin to fall in love. The trio eventually reach Paris and go to see Marie, who has given up the search after meeting numerous impostors. Despite this, Marie's cousin Sophie quizzes Anya to confirm her identity. Though Anya offers every answer taught to her, Dimitri finally realizes she is the real Anastasia when she (without being taught) vaguely recalls how he helped her escape the palace siege. Sophie, also convinced, arranges a meeting with Marie at the Palais Garnier.

There, Dimitri tries to establish an introduction but Marie refuses, believing Anya will be another imposter and has already heard of Dimitri's initial scheme to con her. Anya overhears the conversation and angrily leaves. Dimitri later abducts Marie in her car to force her to see Anya, finally convincing her when he presents the music box Anastasia dropped during their escape. As Marie and Anya converse, Anya regains her memories, and the two sing the lullaby the music box plays, a secret only the two of them knew. Marie recognizes Anya as Anastasia, and the two are joyfully reunited.

Marie offers Dimitri the reward money the next day, recognizing him as the servant boy who saved them, but he declines it and leaves to return to the Soviet Union. At her return celebration, Anya is informed by her grandmother of Dimitri's gesture, leaving her torn between staying or going with him. She walks off to the Pont Alexandre III, where Rasputin traps and attacks her. Dimitri returns to save her, but is attacked by a Black Pegasus statue enchanted by Rasputin. In the struggle, Anya manages to get hold of Rasputin's reliquary and crushes it under her foot, avenging her family as Rasputin's demons turn on him and destroy him, thus ending the Romanov curse.

Anya and Dimitri elope, and Anya sends a farewell letter to Marie and Sophie promising to return one day, which Marie accepts, satisfied to have finally been reunited with her granddaughter. A female bat comes along to kiss Bartok, whilst Bartok bids the audience goodbye.

## Voice cast

* Meg Ryan as Anastasia "Anya" Romanov
	+ Kirsten Dunst provides the speaking voice for young Anastasia while Lacey Chabert provides the singing voice for young Anastasia.
* John Cusack as Dimitri
	+ Glenn Walker Harris Jr. provides the voice for young Dimitri.
* Kelsey Grammer as Vladimir "Vlad" Vasilovich
* Christopher Lloyd as Grigori Rasputin
	+ Jim Cummings provides the singing voice of Rasputin.
* Hank Azaria as Bartok
* Angela Lansbury as Marie Feodorovna Romanov
* Bernadette Peters as Sophie Stanislovskievna Somorkov-Smirnoff
* Andrea Martin as "Comrade" Phlegmenkoff
* Rick Jones as Nicholas II Romanov
	+ Jones also provided voice-over work for the voices of a revolutionary soldier, a servant, and a ticket agent.
* Charity James as Anna Anderson (Impostor Anastasia)
* Debra Mooney as an Actress
* Arthur Malet as Traveling Man and the Romanov's Majordomo

J. K. Simmons, Victoria Clark, Billy Porter, Patrick Quinn and Lillias White were among the ensemble and character voices.

## Production

### Development

In May 1994, due to the underwhelming box-office performance of *Thumbelina* (1993), Walt Disney Feature Animation decided to transfer several of the animators who worked on the recently-shut down Dublin facility to an all-new satelite studio. Animators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman suggested Phoenix, Arizona for the location of the new studio because the state offered the company about $1 million in job training funds and low-interest loans for the state-of-the-art digital animation equipment, with a staff of 300 artists and technicians, a third of whom worked with Bluth and Goldman in the Dublin studio. For the studio's first project, Disney insisted they select one out of a dozen existing plays where Bluth and Goldman suggested adapting *The King and I* and *My Fair Lady*, though Disney felt it would be impossible to improve on Audrey Hepburn's performance and Lerner and Loewe's score. Following several story suggestions, the idea to adapt the legend of Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia originated from Michael Eisher, who considered attempting to retell the story of a historical character like Disney did before with *Pocahontas* and *Balto* (both 1995), but in an improved way. They would later adapt story elements from *Pygmalion* with the peasant Anya being molded into a regal woman.

Early into production, Bluth and Goldman began researching the actual events through enlisting former CIA agents stationed in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Around this same time, screenwriter Eric Tuchman had written a script that co-screenwriter Bruce Graham described as being "very adult, very based in reality, all about politics, and without any magic or comedy". Eventually, Bluth and Goldman decided the history of Anastasia and the Romanov dynasty was too dark for their film. In 1995, Graham and Susan Gauthier reworked Tuchman's script into a light-hearted romantic comedy. When Graham and Gauthier moved onto other projects, the husband-and-wife screenwriting team Bob Tzudiker and Noni White were hired for additional rewrites. Actress Carrie Fisher also made uncredited rewrites of the film, particularly the scene in which Anya leaves the orphanage for Paris.

For the villains, Bluth also did not take into consideration depicting Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks, and initially toyed with the idea of a police chief with a vendetta against Anastasia. Instead, they decided to have Grigori Rasputin as the villain with Goldman explaining it was because of "all the different things they did to try to destroy Rasputin and what a horrible man he really was, the more it seemed appetizing to make him the villain". In reality, Rasputin was already dead when the Romanovs were assassinated. In addition to this, Bluth created the idea for Bartok, the albino bat, as a sidekick for Rasputin: "I just thought some of Disney's greatest villains usually have a comic sidekick, just to let everyone know that it was all right to laugh. For example; Honest John had Gideon, Captain Hook had Mr. Smee, Cruella de Vil had Jasper and Horace, Prince John had Sir Hiss and the Sheriff of Nottingham, Carface had Digit and the Mott Street Maulers, Jafar had Iago, and Scar had the Hyenas. A bat seemed a natural friend for Rasputin. Making him a white bat came later – just to make him different". Composers Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens recalled being at Au Bon Pain in New York City where Rasputin and Bartok were pitched, and being dismayed at the decision to go down a historically inaccurate route; they made their stage musical adaption "more sophisticated, more far-reaching, more political" to encompass their original vision.

### Casting

Bluth stated that Meg Ryan was his first and only choice for the title character. However, Ryan was indecisive about accepting the role due to its dark historical events. To persuade her, the animation team took an audio clip of Annie Reed from *Sleepless in Seattle* and created an animation reel based on it which was screened for her following an invitation to the studio. Ryan later accepted the role; in her words "I was blown away that they did that". Before Ryan was cast, Broadway singer and actress Liz Callaway was brought in to record several demos of the songs hoping to land a job in background vocals, but the demos were liked well enough by songwriters that they were ultimately used in the final film. John Cusack openly admitted after being cast that he couldn't sing; his singing duties were performed by Jonathan Dokuchitz. Goldman had commented that originally, as with the rest of the cast, they were going to have Ryan record her lines separately from the others, with Bluth reading the lines of the other characters to her. However, after Ryan and the directors were finding the method to be too challenging when her character was paired with Dimitri, she and Cusack recorded the dialogue of their characters together, with Goldman noting "it made a huge difference".

Peter O'Toole was considered for the role of Rasputin, but Christopher Lloyd was hired because of his popularity from the *Back to the Future* trilogy. Bartok was initially written for Woody Allen, but Disney was reluctant to hire him following revelations of his relationship with his ex-partner Mia Farrow's adoptive daughter, Soon-Yi Previn. Martin Short was also considered, but Hank Azaria won the role ten minutes into his audition.

### Musical score and soundtrack album

The film score was composed, co-orchestrated, and conducted by David Newman, whose father, Alfred Newman, composed the score of the 1956 film of the same name. The songs, of which "Journey to the Past" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, were written by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. The first song they wrote for the project was "Once Upon a December"; it was written during a heatwave "so [they were] sweating and writing winter imagery". The film's soundtrack was released in CD and audio cassette format by Walt Disney Records on October 28, 1997.