OUR STORY SO FAR: Working under an impossibly tight deadline, producer Randy Fullmer and director Mark Dindal actually found a way to turn Rogers Allers' ambitious but ungainly animated epic, "Kingdom of the Sun," into a somewhat easy to produce cartoon. But -- in doing this -- Randy and Mark had to radically reduce the size and scope of the project. What was once supposed to be majestic, grand and glorious, awe - inspiring was now going to be silly, fast moving, cute but -- more importantly -- highly commercial.

Disney CEO Michael Eisner as well as other top executives at Disney Feature Animation were reportedly thrilled with the salvage job that Fullmer and Dindal had done on the troubled production. The animators, musicians and story people who'd already spent three years working on "Kingdom" were -- obviously -- not as enthused.

These folks had labored side by side with the film's original director -- Roger Allers -- and believed strongly in his vision for the project. Understandably, a lot of these people were upset at the idea that the magical motion picture that they had been laboring for months to produce was about to be chopped into a gag fest.

Several of the lead animators on the film -- angered at the thought that years of hard work was about to hit the cutting room floor -- loudly threatened to quit "Kingdom" rather than continue with the project.

Now director Dindal had two huge crisises on his hands. He and Fullmer still had to deliver a finished version of the film in less than two years time *PLUS* Mark had to go around, soothing the egos of all the key talent on the project -- just to make sure that none of them stormed out of the "Kingdom."

(Does this sound like a fun job to you? Kinda makes you wonder why so many people in Hollywood want to direct. Anyway ...)