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Bolt was originally titled
American Dog as conceived by writer/director Chris Sanders, the creator of Disney’s
Lilo & Stitch. A lot more than the name changed when Sanders was fired from the project. Bolt's original plot, as conceived by Sanders, involved a TV star dog named Henry who gets lost in the desert and teams up with a one-eyed cat and a radioactive bunny, all the while thinking he is still on the TV set.
The exact circumstances behind Sanders’ removal from the project have not been made public, but Chief Creative Officer of Disney, John Lasseter, told the NY Times, “
"Chris Sanders is extremely talented, but he couldn’t take it to the place it had to be." In the new plot, Henry—now named Bolt—is still a TV star, but his desert adventure becomes a cross-country trek to return to Hollywood after being mistakenly shipped to New York City. Like the original, Bolt suffers from delusions; in the new plot, he believes that his on-camera super powers are real. Bolt teams up with two unlikely traveling companions in an abandoned house cat named Mittens and a hamster named Rhino as he travels the byways of America.
Bolt features the voices of John Travolta, Susie Essman, Thomas Haden Church, Woody Harrelson, Bernie Mac and Hugh Grant.
Bolt is scheduled to be released November 26, 2008.