For many decades, Disney Animation had an audience of young girls on lock. Thanks to multiple hit film adaptations of European folk tales, the "Disney Princess" became solidified in the mass consciousness. Films like "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937), "Cinderella" (1950), "Sleeping Beauty" (1959), "The Little Mermaid" (1989), and "Beauty and the Beast" (1991) are still watched to this day, and still marketed under Disney's lucrative "Princess" brand.

Disney, however, clearly longed to capture an audience of young boys as well. Adventure films like "The Rescuers," fantasy films like "The Black Cauldron," and comedies like "Robin Hood" weren't cutting the mustard. Disney wanted to make a broad, tech-based, action-packed adventure — something modern — for hyped-up little male children

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