The director who shook up Disney and Hollywood animation with a mermaid, a genie from a lamp and a Polynesian princess

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The director who shook up Disney and Hollywood animation with a mermaid, a genie from a lamp and a Polynesian princess

When Steven Spielberg told Disney in 1989 that the movie that John Musker (Chicago, 70 years old) had made for them was going to sell $100 million in tickets, no one believed him. The new project wasn’t based on a classic story like Cinderella. What’s more, it featured reggae sung by a crab. Was this really what was going to lead the studio out of its long dry spell? “It was done with a sense of almost naivety,” Musker recalls. “We weren’t tryin…