A long-lost animatic for a Kingdom Hearts TV series pilot episode has been released online by an animator who claims to have worked on the project. The scrapped Kingdom Hearts cartoon pilot seems to have gone into production back in 2003, presumably at Disney, while Kingdom Hearts 2 was in development at Square Enix — which may have been the reason the show was canceled.
Kingdom Hearts TV animated series pilot is now on YouTube
The fully-voiced animatic for the proposed Kingdom Hearts animated series can be seen below. It acts as an introduction to the world and features the likes of Sora, Riku, and Kairi alongside Disney characters such as Donald Duck, Goofy, Jafar, and Maleficent.
This was released by animator Seth Kearsley, who says he directed the Kingdom Hearts pilot back in 2003 — for reference, the first Kingdom Hearts game released back in 2002, and Kingdom Hearts 2 ultimately came out in 2005. Kearsley more recently worked on The Secret Life of Pets and Sing, but at the time he was coming off Eight Crazy Nights.
He recently released a video talking all about the Kingdom Hearts cartoon, how it “broke his heart,” and why it never happened. He also explains why Haley Joel Osmont didn’t seem to be voicing Sora, despite being the American actor who played the character in the games — “it was just a schedule thing,” he says.
“It tested better than anything else they tested,” Kearsley says. Nonetheless, the problem seemed to be with Square Enix, which was looking to expand the gaming series and supposedly didn’t think it was the right time to make an animated series. Storyboards and the animatic for the pilot episode seem to be all that’s left of the Kingdom Hearts animated series.
Nevertheless, Kingdom Hearts remains a popular franchise. Kingdom Hearts 4 is on its way and Sora was the final character added Super Smash Bros Ultimate earlier this year.
