Disney animation chief Thomas Schumacher is insisting that the studio's reported decision in 1998 to toss out virtually all of its half-completed Kingdom of the Sun after four years of production and rework it as The Emperor's New Groove was not an especially unusual choice. "It's a lot like writing a novel or a play," Schumacher told today's (Wednesday) Los Angeles Times. "It takes shape over a long period of time."

Nevertheless, the newspaper commented in reporting on the project, "with a puzzling title, an unfamiliar story line, a vague sense of locale, an unlikable lead character and an arch-villainess who can't begin to compare with the frightening, apple-bearing witch in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the question becomes whether Disney is too far off its usual animated groove."

However, in an advance review, Newsweek's David Ansen called the movie, "a fleet, funny family entertainment that should tickle parents as well as tykes." And AP critic David Germain, although somewhat lukewarm, nevertheless remarked that the movie is "a reasonably diverting bit of animated puffery that children will like for its goofiness and adults can tolerate for its occasional wit."

Source: Studio Briefing