What if Don Bluth stayed at Disney?/An American Tale: Anne-Marie Goes West

***An American Tale: Anne-Marie Goes West*** is a 1991 American animated Western comedy film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and Amblin Entertainment, directed by Phil Nibbelink and Simon Wells (in their feature directorial debuts), and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The TBD Disney animated feature film and a sequel to the 1986 Disney animated film *An American Tale*, the film follows the story of the Moskowitz family, who emigrate to the Wild West. Children Anne-Marie and Fievel are separated from their family as the train approaches the American Old West; the film chronicles them, Itchy Itchiford, and Sheriff Wylie Burp teaching Tiger how to act like a dog.

*Anne-Marie Goes West* was the first of four Disney animated feature films (followed by *Tom Sawyer*, *The Ugly Duckling*, and *Balto*) that were produced primarily at the short-lived London animation studio Disney and Spielberg set up to keep the animators of *Who Framed Roger Rabbit* (1988) working. It was Disney's second animated film sequel after *The Rescuers Down Under* (1990) and the final Disney animated film to use cel animation. While the animation medium was transitioning to computers in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Spielberg wanted almost all of the animation of *Anne-Marie Goes West* to be hand-drawn, describing animation as "an arts-and-crafts business". He also wanted the animation to have a "live-action" feel. Dom DeLuise, Phillip Glasser, Nehemiah Persoff, and Erica Yohn reprise their roles from the first film for *Anne-Marie Goes West*. Due to Judith Barsi's murder in 1988, Natalie Gregory (in her final film role before her retirement last year) assumed the voice role of Anne-Marie, Tanya's original voice actor, Amy Green, was replaced by Cathy Cavadini, and new characters were voiced by John Cleese, Amy Irving, Jon Lovitz, and James Stewart in his final film role. James Horner returned as a composer and wrote the film's song "Dreams to Dream", which garnered a Golden Globe nomination.

Don Bluth, the director of the original film, had no involvement with it. It was the first of only two theatrical sequels to a Disney animated film directed by Don Bluth to not involve Bluth himself, the second being *Frozen II*, as 13 sequels to *The Land Before Time*, two sequels to *The Swan Princess*, two sequels to *Balto*, and single sequels to *The Secret of NIMH*, *Banjo the Woodpile Cat*, *Beauty and the Beast*, *The Snow Queen*, *Peter Rabbit* and *The Hunchback of Notre Dame* were direct-to-video releases along with other two sequels of *An American Tale*.

Premiering at the Kennedy Center on November 17, 1991, *An American Tale: Anne-Marie Goes West* began its American theatrical run on December 22. *Anne-Marie Goes West* was promoted with a wide array of tie-ins and started in the top ten at the box office. The film grossed $22 million in the United States against a budget of $16 million.

Upon its release, *Anne-Marie Goes West* was panned for a lack of perceived innovation compared to other animated films of its time. However, it found success when it came to home video sales, quickly reaching the top of the video charts when released on tape in March 1992; at the time, the film held the record for shortest theater-to-home-video transfer and it has since gained a large cult following. In addition to garnering more home media releases, TV airings, and video game adaptations later on, the film has made numerous 2010s retrospective best-of lists from online publications, especially best Netflix-available Western films. *Anne-Marie Goes West* was followed by a short-lived CBS series named *An American Tale* and two direct-to-video sequels and prequels: *An American Tale: In Search of Gabriel's Horn* (1996) and *An American Tail: The Mystery of the Night Monster* (1999).