Treasure Planet (2002)
- Before Joseph Gordon-Levitt was cast, several major A-list stars turned down the lead role because they felt the script was too risky.
- The incredible score for Treasure Planet was composed in just a few weeks after the original composer dropped out.
- During the filming of Treasure Planet, Joseph Gordon-Levitt improvised one of the most famous lines in the movie.
Treasure Planet is a 2002 American animated science fiction adventure produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, reimagining Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island in outer space. Joseph Gordon-Levitt voices Jim Hawkins, a rebellious teenager on a futuristic colonial planet who finds a map to the legendary Treasure Planet and joins the crew of a solar galleon sailing through space to find it. Jim forms a complex, father-son relationship with the ship's cyborg cook John Silver, voiced by Brian Murray, who is secretly plotting a mutiny to seize the treasure for himself.
Treasure Planet was the passion project of directors Ron Clements and John Musker, who had pitched the concept since 1985 and spent years developing its innovative visual blend of hand-drawn characters on 3D CGI environments. The film was a catastrophic commercial failure, earning only $110 million worldwide on a $140 million budget, and is often cited as the film that ended Disney's commitment to traditional hand-drawn animation. Despite the financial disaster, Treasure Planet has been warmly reappraised by animation enthusiasts for its stunning visual design and emotional depth.
