The Rescuers Down Under | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by |
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Produced by | Thomas Schumacher |
Screenplay by |
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Based on | Characters created by Margery Sharp |
Starring | |
Music by | Bruce Broughton |
Edited by | Michael Kelly |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Buena Vista Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 77 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $47.4 million[1] |
The Rescuers Down Under is a 1990 American animated adventure film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The 29th Disney animated feature film, the film is the sequel to the 1977 film The Rescuers, which was based on the novels of Margery Sharp. Directed by Hendel Butoy and Mike Gabriel from a screenplay by Jim Cox, Karey Kirkpatrick, Byron Simpson, and Joe Ranft, it featured the voices of Bob Newhart, Eva Gabor (in her final film role), John Candy, and George C. Scott. In The Rescuers Down Under, Bernard and Bianca travel to the Australian Outback to save a boy named Cody from a villainous poacher in pursuit of an endangered bird of prey.
By the mid-1980s, The Rescuers had become one of Disney's most successful animated features. Under the new management of Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, a feature-length sequel was approved, making it the first animated film sequel theatrically released by the studio.[2] Following their duties on Oliver & Company, animators Butoy and Gabriel were recruited to direct the sequel.[3] Research trips to Australia provided inspiration for the background designs. The film would also mark the full use of the Computer Animation Production System (CAPS), in which it became the first feature film to be completely created digitally.[4] The computer program allowed for artists to digitally ink-and-paint the animators' drawings, and then composite the digital cels over the scanned background art.
The Rescuers Down Under was released to theaters on November 16, 1990 to positive reviews from film critics. However, it struggled at the box office, as it opened on the same day as Home Alone, in which the film garnered $47.4 million worldwide.