Origins and conception Walt Disney himself had first attempted to adapt the
Brothers Grimm fairy tale
Rapunzel into a feature-length animated film during the 1930s and 1940s, but Disney's efforts never fully materialized because the original story was considered too "small". The concept behind
Tangled originated from
The Walt Disney Company supervising animator
Glen Keane in 1996. In 2001, Keane
pitched the idea to then–Disney CEO
Michael Eisner who approved it, but requested the film to be computer-animated. However, Keane was hesitant as he felt computer animation was not quite as fluid or organic as traditional animation was. In October 2003, the film was announced as
Rapunzel Unbraided as a computer-animated feature scheduled for a 2007 release, which Keane described as "a
Shrek-like version of the film". The story initially centered on two teenagers, Claire and Vince, who live in San Francisco and are transported into the fairy tale world, where they inhabit the bodies of Rapunzel and her prince Beau. Rapunzel and Beau themselves are turned into a squirrel and a dog. In July 2004,
Reese Witherspoon and
Kristin Chenoweth were in talks to portray roles, with the latter intended to voice Rapunzel. In October 2005,
Dan Fogler was slated to provide a voice. In reflection, Keane said of the original plot, "It was a fun, wonderful, witty version and we had a couple of great writers. But in my heart of hearts I believed there was something much more sincere and genuine to get out of the story, so we set it aside and went back to the roots of the original fairy tale." In November 2005,
Unbraided was pushed back to a summer 2009 release in order to give Keane "more time to work on the story." In January 2006, the film was then shut down about a week before Catmull and
John Lasseter were placed in charge of the studio, and one of their first decisions was to restart the project and ask Keane to keep going with the film. On October 9, 2008, it was reported that Keane and Wellins had stepped down as directors due to other commitments, and were replaced by the team of
Byron Howard and
Nathan Greno, director and storyboard director, respectively, of Disney's 2008 animated feature
Bolt. Keane stayed on as an executive producer and animation supervisor, while Wellins moved on to direct
Tick Tock Tale (2010). After the film's release, Keane revealed that he had "stepped back" from the role of director because of a heart attack in 2008.
Casting The directors auditioned hundreds of young actresses to find Rapunzel's voice, among them were
Idina Menzel and
Kristen Bell, but both were rejected for not sounding right. On September 10, 2009, it was announced that actress and singer-songwriter
Mandy Moore, who previously collaborated with Disney on
Disneytoon Studios'
Brother Bear 2, had been cast as the voice of Rapunzel, and actor
Zachary Levi would provide the voice of Flynn Rider. For the role of Flynn, the studio mandated exclusively only UK actors to audition for the part, as Rider was intended to be British. An American, Zachary Levi, impersonated a British
Received Pronunciation (RP) accent to audition, leading the producers to opt for him to use his natural American accent. Mandy Moore approached the project through auditioning, when she heard that a film about the story of
Rapunzel was being made. Moore later expressed that she had dreamed to be a Disney princess since she was young and said that with the role of Rapunzel, she had fulfilled her "ultimate childhood dream". She described herself as a "girly fan" of Disney animated films Since the film was going to be a musical, it was required that all auditionees had to read several scenes and perform a song of their choice, to ensure that the voice actors could both act and sing. Moore revealed that she had to attend several audition sessions
Writing and character development When asked about the character of Rapunzel, Mandy Moore said that Rapunzel was a relatable character and called her a "Renaissance, bohemian" woman Moore said "[Rapunzel] doesn't know she's a princess [until the end of the film]. She's just really sort of motivated to find out what else is out there beyond this crazy tower she's lived in for 18 years," and that "she's very independent, she can take care of herself, and she's definitely come up with really entertaining ways to keep herself busy." At a meeting one day, animator John Ripa floated an idea which turned out to be the solution they had been looking for: the mysterious floating lanterns. Mandy Moore later recalled that during recording, she had never met Donna Murphy and only met Zachary Levi once when they recorded "I See the Light". For the songs, Moore and Levi recorded on a soundstage with a 65-piece orchestra under the supervision of composer Alan Menken. They sang live with the orchestra for several times in order to help everyone "get a vibe" and a feel for the music and the singing, then were asked to go in isolation booths to record the actual tracks. In order to aid animators in animating the characters, the filmmakers did interviews with the voice actors and filmed their facial expressions throughout the recording sessions. After watching the finished film, Moore was disappointed because she felt that her voice sounded "shrill", while Levi thought that his performance sounded "incredibly nasally". To create the impression of a painting,
non-photorealistic rendering was used. Glen Keane originally wanted the film to be animated using a traditional 2D animation process. However, Disney executives David Stainton and Dick Cook announced that they would only approve the film for production if it were created using the 3D computer graphics. In response to that demand, Glen Keane held a seminar called "
The Best of Both Worlds", where he, with 50 Disney CGI artists and traditional artists, focused on the pros and cons of each style. After the meeting, it was decided that the film would be made in 3D CGI animation, but in a way as to become an extension of the traditional 2D Disney "aesthetic", a term which referred to the naturalistic animation that conforms to the fundamental principles of animation as documented by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston in the book
The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. One of the main goals of the animators was to create movement that mimicked the soft fluidity of the hand-drawn art found in older Disney animated films. Keane credited Disney 3D animator Kyle Strawitz with helping to combine CGI with the traditional hand-drawn style. As a counterpart to the appealing and cute design of Rapunzel, the directors wanted to make Flynn Rider "the most handsome, most attractive male lead Disney has ever had." They held a large "Hot Man Meeting" where they gathered about 30 women from the studio and asked them what they considered attractive in a man. They brought in hundreds of images of their favourite male actors and celebrities, which were torn and pasted back again. After much deliberation, his look was eventually narrowed down to one concept drawing. As late as January 2010, the directors were still not sure if the Rapunzel character's length of hair was going to work. These problems were finally solved in March: An improved version of a hair simulation program named Dynamic Wires, originally developed for
Bolt, was eventually used. To make hair float believably in water, and to surmount other similar challenges,
discrete differential geometry was used to produce the desired effects, freeing the animators from executing these specific tasks directly, which would have taken days instead of minutes.
Controversy over the film title change When first put into production, the film was promoted as having the title
Rapunzel Unbraided, which was later changed to
Rapunzel. Disney's previous animated feature,
The Princess and the Frog (2009)—while being well received by various critics —was not as successful as Disney had hoped, and Catmull later admitted in writing that Disney Animation's faith that
The Princess and the Frogs excellent quality would bring in all audiences notwithstanding the word "princess" in the title was their version of "a stupid pill". In order to market the new film to both sexes and additional age groups, Disney changed the title from
Rapunzel to
Tangled while also emphasizing Flynn Rider, the film's prominent male character, showing that his story is just as important as that of Rapunzel. Disney was criticized for altering the title as a
marketing strategy.
Floyd Norman, a former Disney and
Pixar animator and story artist, said, "The idea of changing the title of a classic like
Rapunzel to
Tangled is beyond stupid. I'm convinced they'll gain nothing from this except the public seeing Disney as desperately trying to find an audience." Justin Chang of
Variety compared it to changing the title of
The Little Mermaid to
Beached. Writing for the
San Francisco Chronicles blog, Margot Magowan accused Disney of sexism, writing: On November 24, 2010, the day of the film's release, Greno and Howard disputed reports that the title change was a marketing decision. They said they changed the title from
Rapunzel to
Tangled because Rapunzel is not the only main character in the film. They went on to say that "you cannot call
Toy Story "
Buzz Lightyear," and they really needed a title that represented what the film is, and that it stars the duo of Rapunzel and Flynn Rider. In March 2014, Lasseter explained that Disney had changed the name to improve the film's appeal
to the four quadrants: "There was an audience perception that these movies were just for little girls but when boys, men, whatever actually see these movies they like them. So on
Rapunzel … we changed the name and we called it
Tangled. We did marketing that made the people who would not normally show up say, 'Hey, this looks pretty good.'" ==Music==