Walt Disney Pictures presents "Tangled," one of the most hilarious, hair-raising tales ever told. When the kingdom's most wanted--and most charming--bandit, Flynn Rider (voice of Zachary Levi), hides out in a mysterious tower, he's taken hostage by Rapunzel (voice of Mandy Moore), a beautiful and feisty tower-bound teen with 70 feet of magical, golden hair. Flynn's curious captor, who's looking for her ticket out of the tower where she's been locked away for years, strikes a deal with the handsome thief, and the unlikely duo sets off on an action-packed escapade, complete with a super-cop horse (named Maximus), an over-protective chameleon (named Pascal), and a gruff gang of pub thugs.
Also featured in the talented vocal ensemble is two-time Tony® Award winner Donna Murphy as Mother Gothel. Ron Perlman lends his voice to a Stabbington Brother, one of Flynn's double-crossed partners in crime, and Jeffrey Tambor and Brad Garrett provide the voices of two of the thugs Flynn and Rapunzel encounter along the way.
"'Tangled' is so full of hilarious characters, but it also has tremendous action and a lot of heart," says John Lasseter, chief creative officer for Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios. "We wanted to create a unique world and story that evoke the rich, dramatic feeling that is classically Disney, but is also fresh and humorous, and that gives the audience something it has never seen before in computer animation. The filmmakers have created a world that builds on Disney's heritage but transports us to a land that is completely new."
Adds producer Roy Conli, "It's this wonderful story of two people who don't really know who they are yet, and in the course of the film, they both discover their destiny. We wanted to break some of the stereotypes that had been done before. Flynn is a guy who's been there, done that, and seen it all. Rapunzel is a sheltered, naïve-but-smart girl who hasn't been there, hasn't done that, and hasn't seen anything! He helps bring her to a place where she can see herself more clearly, and she helps bring him to a place where he can change some of the mistakes he's made in life. Together, they fill in what's missing in each other."
Lasseter tapped two of the studio's most revered talents to helm Disney's 50^th animated feature. As the animation industry's top rising stars, Nathan Greno and Byron Howard were called on to create a movie that could sit on the shelf next to classic Disney animated films and be an entertaining roller-coaster ride for modern audiences. And Lasseter, who's a two-time Academy Award winner ("Toy Story," "Tin Toy") with directing credits that include "A Bug's Life" and "Cars," says they've done it. "They are some of the most talented young directors I've ever seen," he says. "They have such incredible story sense, but one of the things that I love about them is their sense of humor. And they really understand what makes a Disney film a Disney film: the heart. Walt Disney always said, 'For every laugh, there should be a tear.' They have such a fresh, contemporary twist on something that's classically Disney.
"It looks like a classic Disney animated film, but it's also in 3D CG animation," adds Lasseter, "so it's really unlike anything we've ever done before."
Howard directed Walt Disney Animation Studios' "Bolt," the 2008 animated comedy adventure that grossed more than $300 million worldwide and earned two Golden Globe nominations (Best Animated Film and Best Original Song) and an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature. Greno joined Walt Disney Animation Studios in 1996 and served more than a decade in the story department. He was story supervisor on the 2008 film "Bolt" and wrote and directed the acclaimed 2009 short "Super Rhino".
With its incredible cast of appealing human and animal characters, fantastic settings--from castles and towers to forests and pubs--and spectacular visual effects including a climactic scene with as many as 46,000 glowing lanterns, "Tangled" is a contemporary comedy for audiences of all ages that also represents a technical and artistic milestone for Walt Disney Animation Studios and for the art of computer animation.
"Audiences may think they know what to expect from a film featuring Rapunzel," says Greno, "but we flipped it on its head to make a movie that's relevant, fresh and different. Byron and I both love the classic Disney films, and we wanted to go back to this cool, retro look from the fifties, and mix it with contemporary storytelling, pacing, action and humor. This puts a whole new layer on this kind of story."
Howard adds, "The scope of this movie is gigantic--with horse chases and sword fights, prison breaks and floods. The story gave us a chance to take modern-day moviemaking sensibilities and pump it into a classic story.
"We also had the amazingly funny and clever Dan Fogelman doing our writing," continues Howard. "He brought life to Flynn, he injected clever wit to Rapunzel and this great sarcastic nature to Mother Gothel; we couldn't have done it without him."

UNTANGLING RAPUNZEL: DIRECTORS NATHAN GRENO AND BYRON HOWARD CREATE A CONTEMPORARY NEW TAKE ON A CLASSIC TALE
The story of Rapunzel has long fascinated the master storytellers at Disney; the story has been in development since the 1940s under Walt Disney himself.  Directors Byron Howard and Nathan Greno helped steer "Tangled" to the big screen. 
Howard recalls, "Nathan was working on the story before we became the directors, and he saw a real spark in Rapunzel that was starting to come out. That grew into our initial conversation about the movie. We asked ourselves, 'Who is this character, and how quickly can we get her out of the tower?' We knew that she had to propel the whole story, and if she's stuck in this room for the whole show, we're not going to get anywhere. That really affected what we needed her character to be."
"We wanted to make her a more dynamic character, and that meant having someone else to balance her out," adds Greno. "She needed someone to be her foil and equal--a character who could hold his own against this quirky, intelligent girl. She's very smart, but she's not worldly. She has this limited world view and doesn't really know what's out there. She knows she wants to see those floating lights and figure out what they are. That's where Flynn Rider comes in. He's the worldly, sharp guy who's been around the block a few times and knows how the world works. Throughout the film, they both fill in what's missing in each other."
Helping the filmmakers shape their story were head of story Mark Kennedy and screenwriter Dan Fogelman ("Bolt," "Cars"). Working together with Howard and Greno, and with some important creative contributions by John Lasseter, the film took on an exciting new direction and became an exciting tale of two characters on a swashbuckling adventure.
Mark Kennedy recalls, "John really wanted the film to capture audiences. It was always important to him that Rapunzel be a very strong character and that her life in the tower was not unpleasant or terrifying. He explained to us that she is the daughter of a king and queen, and it would be in her nature to be bold despite her circumstances. We set out to find these characters that are fun and interesting and that the audience would want to spend time with."
"Nathan and Byron had a very clear notion of what they wanted to do with the story from the very beginning," adds Fogelman. "They wanted to tell a classic Disney story in a completely new way that would fit the style of CG animation. This meant pushing the comedy and the characters into a kind of 21^st-century sensibility while still keeping many of the elements that audiences have always loved about Disney films. The key was always finding the right balance.
"Finding the right voice and tone for Flynn, and making him entertaining, was probably the biggest challenge," he continues. "He's at his best in this movie when he's playing little mind games with other people and entertaining himself along with them. He's the kind of character who's having fun with the words whether or not anybody else is enjoying them as much as he is. There's something very Cary Grant-like about him. At his heart, he's really kind of a lost soul who doesn't quite know what he wants and who he is."
Howard notes, "As the story developed, it became more and more a movie about Rapunzel and Flynn. It's a movie about these two very different people, their unique chemistry, and how they both grow and become better people because of it."
"Rapunzel was so interesting and such a great character that we had to keep making Flynn more interesting to keep up with her," adds Greno. "And then at times, he would become more interesting than she was, so we'd have to bump her up. But in doing that, in elevating both characters, they both became these really strong characters. Obviously, this movie doesn't work without Rapunzel, but it also doesn't work if you take Flynn Rider out of the equation. We needed both characters to make the engine run."
"We tried to make Flynn Rider the most handsome, most attractive male lead Disney has ever had," says Howard.  "We did a lot of research.  We had all the ladies of the studio come in to the 'Hot Man Meeting,' where we gathered pictures of the favorite handsome men--we collected pictures from the Internet and from books and from women's wallets.  They were very specific about what they liked and what they didn't like."
"But," cautions Greno, "the women would come in and they'd put up these pictures of the hottest guys they'd ever seen, then point out the flaws in all of them."
"Everybody got ripped apart. Nobody was perfect," says Howard.  "It was a very hard meeting to be in as a man. You left feeling terrible.  But we tried to coalesce all this information into one amazingly handsome and appealing character."   
"We created the ultimate man," says Greno.
Greno ended up having a lot of influence on the character. "Nine times out of ten, when we needed to lock something down acting-wise in dailies, Nathan would be the one up in front of the group, showing how it's done," says Howard. "And because the character came so naturally to him, he did a lot of the scratch track. When Zachary Levi came in, he added another layer to it. We would take that back to our boards, re-board it and re-write it. Once somebody comes in and lands a character, you can hear the voice in your head and you're informed."
Producer Conli adds, "The amazing thing about this film has been working with Nathan and Byron. They came in with a story that needed to be reinvented, and they were able to turn it around very quickly and make it exceptional. Nathan's innate story ability and Byron's sense of entertainment and animation made them the ideal choice to direct 'Tangled.' They understood the characters so well and were able to act out and communicate so well with the rest of the team. It was very exciting and rewarding to be working with such young and gifted filmmakers."

TAPPING DISNEY'S ANIMATION TRADITION
Bringing the power of classic Disney storytelling to "Tangled" and a driving force behind the character design and expressive, nuanced animated performances is the remarkable Glen Keane, a 35-year Disney veteran considered one of the true modern masters of the medium. "We have all these incredibly talented animators here," says Greno, "and we have Glen, who's taking all the knowledge and tradition that he has and passing that along to this next generation of animators. We have this thing that no other studio has: legacy." Read more

KEANE INSIGHTS: DISNEY ANIMATION GREAT GLEN KEANE MENTORS AND INSPIRES A NEW GENERATION OF ANIMATORS
Glen Keane has a signature approach to art and technology and a longstanding desire to combine the two; so "Tangled" presented a welcome opportunity to him. "It's not that I was on a quest for some technical advancement, but it's much more for satisfying a desire in me to realize this idea of sculptural drawing," says Keane.Read more

MAGIC IS IN THE HAIR: CREATING AND ANIMATING SEVENTY FEET OF HAIR
Key to the film's success was finding a way to animate Rapunzel's hair and make it seem believable, organic and able to do all that the filmmakers and animators needed it to do. Read more

SEEING THE LIGHT: "TANGLED"'S TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENTS ADD TO THE FUN AND SPECTACLE
In addition to its impressive use of technology to advance the art of the animation, "Tangled" brought together a team of amazing technical talents to create the visual excitement, scope and beauty that the filmmakers envisioned. Visual effects supervisor Steve Goldberg, a 20-year Disney veteran, was responsible for overseeing the various teams that created the look development, environments and effects for the film. Read more

WHO'S WHO IN "TANGLED"
According to director Byron Howard, "Tangled" is a "swashbuckling adventure that's packed with action, laughs, a scene-stealing horse named Maximus and a whole host of colorful characters that we hope you'll never forget."   The filmmakers all agree that they've created some amazing characters. "The characters just steal the show," says Lasseter. Read more

BRINGING THE CHARACTERS TO LIFE: DISNEY'S ANIMATION TEAM AND TOP VOCAL TALENTS CREATE MEMORABLE PERFORMANCES
Animating human characters has always been one of the toughest things to do in computer animation, with films like "The Incredibles" and "Ratatouille" (both from DisneyŸPixar) setting the standard for the art form. Those films took a highly caricatured approach to human animation and introduced a subtlety and expressiveness that hadn't been seen before. Under the direction of animation supervisors Glen Keane, Clay Kaytis and John Kahrs, the animation on "Tangled" represents another milestone for animating humans, as well as some very appealing animal characters. Supervising animators Lino Di Salvo and Mark Mitchell worked in concert with the trio of supervisors to keep the animation at a high level. In all, the animated cast for "Tangled" includes five main characters, 21 thugs, the king and queen and 38 townspeople.Read more

SETTING THE STAGE: ART DIRECTOR DAVE GOETZ USES APPEALING SHAPES, SETS AND COLORS TO ADD TO THE VISUAL INVENTIVENESS AND STORYTELLING
Art director Dave Goetz and co-art director Dan Cooper (along with production designer Doug Rogers) were charged with creating the look of the film from its environments and architectural design to its color palette. Taking their cue from John Lasseter, they designed Rapunzel's tower to be "the nicest, most charming bed and breakfast in the south of France, ever." His reasons? Rapunzel is so smart that she would have escaped long before her 18^th birthday if the tower had been unfriendly. Inspired by the S-curve shape language from "Cinderella" and the bulky proportions of "Pinocchio," which added a friendly and inviting tone, the artistic team created CG sets that were both unique and beautiful. Goetz relied on a saturated color palette to get the heightened reality the filmmakers wanted. Read more

DISNEY DIGITAL 3D: A HAIR-RAISING NEW ADVENTURE
Thanks to the wonders of modern technology and the superior quality of Disney Digital 3D, audiences around the globe will get a chance to enjoy the fun and excitement of Rapunzel and Flynn's wild adventure in a totally immersive way. Read more

THE MUSIC: ALAN MENKEN AND GLENN SLATER EXPERIMENT WITH NEW MUSICAL FLAVORS
"Tangled" features five new songs and a score by eight-time Oscar-winning composer/songwriter Alan Menken ("The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast," "Aladdin," "Pocahontas" and "Enchanted"). Lyrics are by Glenn Slater, a Tony and Grammy nominee for his work on "The Little Mermaid." An end-credit song, "Something that I Want" is written and performed by Hollywood Records recording artist Grace Potter.  Read more

BYRON HOWARD  ( Director) grew up in the borough of Landsdowne, Penn. (near Phliadelphia), and moved with his family to the Seattle area when he was 10 years old.  His innate love of art began as a child where he would fill reams of computer paper with characters and stories of his own creation.   His love of storytelling and art matured into a sincere interest in filmmaking in high school, and he went on to study story telling through great literature and film at The Evergreen State College in Washington (where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree).  Howard structured his education with advice from veteran Disney animators Frank Thomas and David Block, and he set out in 1990 for Florida where he first became a host of the Animation Tour on "the other side" of the glass window at Disney-MGM Studios.   His natural talent was soon noticed after a couple portfolio submissions, and by 1994 he'd completed his internship and joined Walt Disney Animation Studios as an inbetweener and clean-up artist on "Pocahontas." He went on to become an animator on "Mulan," and a supervising animator on "Lilo & Stitch," "John Henry" and "Brother Bear"; he also did character design on the latter three movies.  Soon after completing work on "Brother Bear," Howard relocated to California.  He worked as a story artist and character designer before finally becoming a director in 2006.  Walt Disney Animation Studio's 2008 release "Bolt" marked Howard's debut as a feature animated film director. The film was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Animated Feature Film. In addition to his passion for animation, Howard's interests include music, theatre, travel and animals (he has two cats).  He currently resides in Glendale, Calif. 

DAN FOGELMAN (Screenplay by) has worked steadily for Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios.  His first feature film was DisneyŸPixar's "Cars," directed by Pixar co-founder John Lasseter, followed by "Bolt" (2008) and this year's "Tangled."  Fogelman's live-action credits include "Fred Claus" (2007) starring Vince Vaughn as well as the upcoming movies "My Mother's Curse" (Paramount), in which Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen are attached to star as mother and son, and "Last Vegas" (CBS Films), which Peter Chelsom is set to direct. He also wrote the screenplay for next year's "Crazy Stupid Love" (2011), starring Steve Carell.In 2003, Fogelman created and executive-produced the half-hour series "Like Family" (WB).  His pilots since then include "Lipshitz Saves the World" (NBC), starring Leslie Nielsen, and "The 12th Man" (Fox).   A native of New Jersey, Fogelman earned a degree in English from the University of Pennsylvania, which included a year of study at Oxford.

THE ART OF ANIMATION

HOME