‘The Shadow King’: Henry Selick Still Hopes Disney Will Release Shelved Film [Exclusive]

While visiting the set of Oscar-nominated director and animator Henry Selick‘s latest production, Wendell and Wild, Collider’s own Alyse Wax had the opportunity to visit with the creator and sit down to talk shop. From older films like James and the Giant Peach, to his current collaboration with one of horror’s freshest faces Jordan Peele, Wax was able to get an exclusive interview that may provide long-time fans of Selick’s a glimmer of hope for future projects. Does anyone remember The Shadow King? No? That’s because it was scrapped before it could see the light of day.

Selick worked with Disney beginning in the early eighties on classic films such as The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron. On the side, when Selick was taking art classes, he met a young Tim Burton and the two went on to form their own small production company. Years later, Burton would return to their partnership and sell to Disney, which paved the way for the duo to create Oscar-nominated The Nightmare Before Christmas. A darkly original film based on Burton’s art, Nightmare was something Disney had never done before, and in 1993 Selick’s team-up with the master of the macabre put stop-motion animation on the map. Since his work on 2009’s Coraline, an adaptation Selick directed from the work of award-winning author Neil Gaiman, the esteemed animator has been mostly out of the limelight.

After Selick was brought on with Disney Pixar in 2010, the animator pitched an idea for a story he wrote that Disney ultimately deemed “too weird,” originally titled The Shadow King. Before being shelved, however, the project was initially greenlit in 2011, with a number of sculptors and designers onboard to bring Selick’s next masterpiece to life. Sketches, sets and molds were worked on for a year, with a full storyline fleshed out, but after reportedly putting in $50 million, Walt Disney canceled Selick’s vision, clipping its wings before it could take off, due to, they claimed, concerns over future costs. It may be no coincidence that this was a turning-point for Disney in which fans saw the company refocusing their attention to pre-existing franchises, and raking in on merchandise. From a business standpoint, The Shadow King was simply too dark to market to kids. (Hot Topic would like a word, Disney.)

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The original official synopsis of Selick’s film:

“The Shadow King is a deliciously magical tale about a nine-year-old New York orphan ‘Hap,’ who hides his fantastically weird hands with long fingers from a cruel world. But when a living shadow girl teaches him to make amazing hand shadows that come to life, his hands become incredible weapons in a shadow war against a ravenous monster bent on killing Hap’s brother Richard and ultimately destroying New York.”

There was a brief period of time in 2013 that Selick attempted to once again push for The Shadow King to be made. There was even a cast of actors suggested to voice the film, including Pamela Adlon (King of the Hill), Brendan Gleeson, Catherine O’Hara, Jeffrey Tambor and Jaden Betts as the main character Hap. Once again, budgeting became The Shadow King‘s downfall.

In his interview with Wax, Selick said, “I had a project for Disney Pixar that got shut down, it was just too weird for them, called The Shadow King, and I got the rights back to that.” Years later, the animation genius may finally be able to share his creation with his fans. He described The Shadow King as “a really cool story. It’s like Dumbo,” going on to describe the sense of otherness the little boy feels due to his abnormal hands. When discussing the film he didn’t give confirmation that it would be finished and released, but assured Wax that it is “…something [he’d] love to revive.”

While we wait for Selick’s long-lost passion project to finally emerge, be sure to check out Wendell and Wild, coming to Netflix sometime this October. To see some of the finished talent from The Shadow King, including a short clip from the film, you can watch the video below: