Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1989)

Original title

NEMO/ニモ

Directed by

William T. Hurtz, Masami Hata

Genre

fantasy film, adventure film, musical film, children's film, fantasy anime and manga, adventure anime and manga

Country

United States, Japan

Runtime

1h 35m

Rated

G

Rating

6.9 of 10 from 182 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A young boy named Nemo is invited to become the playmate of the princess of Slumberland. He travels through a dream world and must help save the kingdom from a dark force.

dreamlikewhimsicalplayfulbrightmusicalmagicalgentleadventurous

What happens

Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (released in Japan as simply Nemo (ニモ, Nimo) and credited in some territories as Little Nemo) is a 1989 animated musical fantasy film directed by Masami Hata and William Hurtz. Based on the comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay, the film went through a lengthy development process with a number of screenwriters. Ultimately, the screenplay was credited to Chris Columbus and Richard Outten; the storyline and art style differed from the original version. The original soundtrack was penned by the Academy Award-winning Sherman Brothers. The film features the English dub voices of Gabriel Damon, Mickey Rooney, René Auberjonois, Danny Mann, Bernard Erhard, Laura Mooney, William E. Martin, Alan Oppenheimer, Michael Bell, Sidney Miller, Neil Ross, and John Stephenson. Even though it derived from an American comic strip, Little Nemo was animated by the Japanese company Tokyo Movie Shinsha and thus is often considered an anime film, although it was a joint production of Japanese and American animators and production companies. The movie was infamous for being in development hell for much of the 1980s, with many people involved with the production at some point before dropping out. Some of those attached to the film worked at Disney, Lucasfilm, Warner Bros. Cartoons, and Studio Ghibli. Those who expressed interest or were involved at some stage included George Lucas, Chuck Jones, Ray Bradbury, Isao Takahata, Brad Bird, Jerry Rees, Chris Columbus, Ken Anderson, Frank Thomas, Oliver Johnston, Paul Julian, Osamu Dezaki, the Sherman Brothers (Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman), Hayao Miyazaki (who was working at TMS at the time), and Gary Kurtz. The film was first released in Japan on July 15, 1989, by the Toho-Towa and in the United States on August 21, 1992, by the Hemdale Film Corporation for the dub. It received mixed reviews and was a box-office bomb, earning $11.4 million on a $35 million budget. However, it sold well on home video and has since become a cult film. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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