One of Disney's most expensive failures is one you may not be familiar with. Unless you saw it in theaters during its 1985 release (and not many did), you may not have discovered it until more than a decade later when it was finally released for the first time on VHS in 1998.
Not only is "The Black Cauldron" one of Disney's darker movies (the original cut was deemed "unsuitable" for younger kids), but it also contains the Mouse House's scariest villain, the Horned King, who kind of looks like a creepy, talking skull.
If you like "Game of Thrones," the film follows the Horned King's mission to raise an army of the dead. All he needs is this impossible-to-find, all-powerful black cauldron.
A hopeful warrior, Taran, sets out to stop him. On his journey, he's joined by a magical pig, a princess named Eilonwy, and Gurgi, a talking dog-like character who is one of Disney's most underappreciated characters.
It's a shame the film was never popular enough for Princess Eilonwy to get a place among the Disney Princess gang. Before Belle, Ariel, and Mulan, she was the most progressive female lead in a Disney flick, helping Taran escape a castle from the Horned King's clutches. Unfortunately, she probably resembled Aurora from "Sleeping Beauty" too closely.
If you're familiar with Disney's more popular films, you can definitely see some inspiration in "The Black Cauldron" for some future classics, including parallels to the introduction to "Beauty and the Beast" and a background character who looks similar to Esmeralda from "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."
What happened with this film? Why didn't it work? Well, the original cut of the movie was considered so scary for kids that then-chairman of Walt Disney Studios Jeffrey Katzenberg personally trimmed about 12 minutes from the final movie. Over the years, fans have tried to piece some together. If available, Disney should just put the original version of the film on Disney Plus. Give fans the content that originally was deemed too dark to see the light of day under some bonus features.