Disney Cancels Fairytale Animated Feature ‘Gigantic’

The upcoming Disney animated feature Gigantic, a reworking of Jack and the Beanstalk in which Jack befriends a female giant, is no longer.

The project has been shelved, confirmed Walt Disney Animation Group president Ed Catmull. “Sometimes, no matter how much we love an idea or how much heart goes into it, we find that it just isn’t working,” Catmull told The Hollywood Reporter in an exclusive story.

The film was announced publicly in the summer of 2015. At the time, director Nathan Greno (who also co-directed Tangled) said, “We want to make the definitive version of Jack and the Beanstalk. It’s not what you’ve seen before. It’s not one big castle with one big giant walking around.”

Meg LeFauve, screenwriter of the Pixar films Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur joined Greno as co-director last year.

Frozen’s husband-and-wife songwriting team Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez had been slated to provide songs for the film, and Dorothy McKim (Meet the Robinsons, Get a Horse!) was producer.

Here is the full statement that Catmull provided to The Hollywood Reporter:

“It’s impossible to know when we begin a project how the creative process will unfold, and sometimes, no matter how much we love an idea or how much heart goes into it, we find that it just isn’t working. With Gigantic, we’ve come to that point, and although it’s a difficult decision, we are ending active development for now. We are focusing our energies on another project that has been in the works, which we’ll be sharing more about soon, now set for Thanksgiving 2020.”

In the Catmull-Lasseter era, both Disney and Pixar have publicly announced films and subsequently shelved them. Such projects include Disney’s King of Elves and Pixar’s Newt.