Donald Duck (film)

Donald Duck is a a 1998 American computer-animated comedy adventure film, produced by DisneyToon Studios and Walt Disney Television Animation. The film features characters from The Disney Afternoon television series Quack Pack; the film itself acts as a sequel to the TV show. Directed by Kevin Lima and Burny Mattinson, the film's plot revolves around Donald Duck and his quest to save Daisy Duck from the evil magician Merlock.

The film was released theatrically on July 10, 1998 by Walt Disney Pictures to mixed reviews from critics and moderate box office success. The film was dedicated to Dana Hill, who died on July 15, 1996 during production.

Production
The main characters of this film, specifically Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Huey, Dewey and Louie, are based on their incarnations in the Quack Pack television show, albeit slightly older: Max and PJ are high-school aged rather than middle-schoolers. However, Donald Duck and Daisy Duck retain their classic outfits from the 1940s cartoons as opposed to the looks that they had in the 1950s cartoons and Quack Pack.

Although based upon a Disney TV series, Donald Duck was jointly produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, Walt Disney Television Animation, Disney MovieToons, Walt Disney Animation France S.A. and Walt Disney Animation Australia. Pre-production was done at the main WDFA studio in Burbank, California, starting as early as mid-1996. The animation work was done at Walt Disney Animation France in Paris, France supervised by Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi, with additional scenes animated at Disney's studio in Sydney, Australia under the direction of Steve Moore, and clean-up work done at the main Burbank studio. Additional clean-up/animation was done by Phoenix Animation Studios in Canada, and digital ink and paint by the Pixibox studio in France.

Release
The film was released theatrically on July 10, 1998.

Home media
Donald Duck was first released on VHS on December 1, 1998.

It was reissued on June 20, 2000, along with a DVD version as part of the short-lived Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection. To date, this film, A Goofy Movie and Doug's 1st Movie are the only three Disney animated films produced in widescreen that have pan and scan-only Region 1 DVD releases (not counting separate widescreen and pan and scan DVD releases of the two Disney/Pixar films The Incredibles and Cars). However, the film's PAL and NTSC (Japan) counterpart does have a non-anamorphic widescreen DVD, and the film is available in a letterbox presentation on LaserDisc.

The film was released on Blu-Ray for the first time and once again as a 2-disc Platinum Edition DVD on November 4, 2008 to commemorate its 10th anniversary.