In 1983, the Disney studio owned the movie rights to Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are. Animators John Lasseter and Glen Keane were interested in combining traditional, hand-drawn animation with CGI backgrounds, so they shot the following test film featuring Max, the lead character of Wild Things. The studio rejected the idea because they said it was too expensive, and Lasseter was fired soon after.
But Lasseter ended up doing pretty well for himself. Getting the axe from Disney freed him up to get started in the new field of computer graphics. He would go on to be the head honcho of a little company called Pixar, directing Toy Story and other blockbuster hits… Before he eventually returned to Disney in 2006, as chief creative officer. (From monstersandrockets.com)
