The legendary animator Don Bluth brought a lot of impressive and beloved animated films. Emotionally powerful classics like The Land Before Time, An American Tail, The Secret of NIMH, and even his problematic and flawed productions like Anastasia, Thumbelina, or Titan A.E. all hold special places in animation enthusiasts’ hearts. But gamers might know Bluth most from the innovative arcade adventure game, Dragon’s Lair.
As a matter of fact, Don and his business partner Gary Goldman have officially announced they have successfully hit a crowdfunding milestone for turning Dragon’s Lair into a full feature film. After a failed campaign on Kickstarter asking for $550,000 dollars, Don and Gary have gone back to the drawing board with a new campaign on Indiegogo asking for $250,000. And thanks to some fans and lots of advertisement that goal has been reached.
Keep in mind, however, that that quarter of a million dollars isn’t going to fund the whole film, but rather an animated short which will be used to pitch the film to investors with much deeper pockets.
The campaign is still going for twenty-seven days at time of writing and some new stretch goals have come up. Hitting $300,000 will add more and more precious seconds of traditional handdrawn color animation to the pitch, and everyone who just contributed as little as five dollars will get digital Dragon’s Lair comics.
Considering video game adaptations are coming back in a way with Duncan Jones’ Warcraft movie on the horizon, certain studios would most likely eat up the chance to distribute Dirk and Daring’s antics on the big screen, but maybe throw a few more bucks Don’s way just to be sure.