Enchanted Movie

It's taken the equivalent of a fairy tale quest for Barry Josephson, producer of Disney's "Enchanted," to arrive at a happy ending for his live-action/animated musical, which opens Nov. 21. Ten years ago, Josephson read screenwriter Bill Kelly's script for "Enchanted" and was taken with the tale of an animated innocent named Giselle who finds herself in the live-action world of contemporary New York after her fiance's evil stepmother throws her into a magical portal.

In Disney's new musical comedy "Enchanted," which opens Wednesday, the real world and the animated world collide as Giselle (Amy Adams), a fairy-tale princess from the cartoon kingdom of Andalasiam, finds herself in contemporary New York City due to the machinations of an evil queen (Susan Sarandon).

Did you notice anything familiar about "Enchanted?" Disney's new live-action/animated comedy is earning rave reviews for its unconventional tale about an animated princess named Giselle, who is cast out of her kingdom by an evil queen only to find herself in real-world New York City. But the offbeat romance starring Amy Adams, Susan Sarandon, James Marsden as Giselle's animated beau, Prince Edward, and Patrick Dempsey as her real-life Prince Charming, doesn't completely break with tradition.

It's the time you unpack holiday decorations, hound kids to finish school projects and do all the shopping you were supposed to finish last Friday. For good reason, this coming weekend has long been considered a moviegoing abyss. Can Disney's hit romantic comedy "Enchanted" buck that trend? The studios live in such fear of two specific weekends -- the one after Labor Day and the one following Thanksgiving weekend -- that few movies ever debut during them.

Once upon a time, golden age Disney films told magical stories via the art of cel animation -- but "Enchanted" director Kevin Lima wanted to create a 21st century tale with the film, which landed in theaters over the Thanksgiving holiday. His saga about a virtuous maiden, a prince and a wicked queen mixes traditional animation with sequences in which live-action actors romp with photo-real digital characters (a chipmunk and a dragon, the queen's alter ego).