10 Movies That Actually Benefitted From Studio Interference

Pixar’s seminal debut wasn’t just their first feature-length production but also the first computer-animated film ever. Recounting the heartwarming story of sentient toys discovering the meaning of friendship and collaboration, Cowboy Woody strives to keep his owner Andy happy and the toys that look up to him safe.

Given the massive lead-times involved with computer animation, Toy Story first had to be sketched and premised from so-called ‘reels’: Rough, 2D storyboards of a handful of scenes. Enter the infamous Black Friday Reel.

Born from the demands of then Disney Chairman Jeff Katzenberg to make the movie more adult and cynical, the overall tone of the reel was utterly bleak. Woody was no longer a flawed but good-hearted leader, now he was a totalitarian douche-canoe, treating his plastic subjects very harshly for virtually no reason. One scene even sees him callously shoving Buzz Lightyear out of a window and then shrugging it off by saying, “It’s a toy eat toy world”. Yikes.

Director John Lasseter recalled the first screening of the Black Friday Reel with a sense of embarrassment and unhappiness. Roy E. Disney himself among other studio executives were so disgusted by the reel they almost shut down production entirely.

Pixar successfully lobbied for two weeks to tweak and revise the concept; an allowance they were only given on the condition that Woody’s character be softened immensely. Not that this mandated change improved Toy Story, it simply guaranteed that it would someday exist! And for that, we can be grateful to the House of Mouse.