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In 1961 Walt Disney adapted Dodie Smith's 1956 children's novel, The One Hundred and One Dalmatians into an animated feature film, 101 Dalmatians.

In 1967 Smith wrote a sequel to her novel titled, The Starlight Barking, which has a somewhat radical departure from the first novel by having a science-fiction-like mystery behind the plot.

The wikipedia page states that,

Disney archivist Dave Smith said that he was unaware of any considerations for adapting the novel although Walt Disney was interested in doing another project based on Smith's further writings.

This seems a bit contradictory, since most likely Walt Disney (or other execs at the company, as Walt passed in 1966) would have known of and followed her other works, if he was interested, despite that the archivist couldn't find specific evidence.

So I was wondering if there is evidence anywhere else that shows or suggests Disney (the person or the company) ever thought about optioning this second novel for an animated sequel?

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To the best of my knowledge, Disney's only foray into further development was the live-action sequel 102 Dalmations (2000), which was actually the sequel to the 1996 live-action remake of the original film. Another 101 Dalmations movie, 101 Dalmations II: Patch's London Adventure (2002) had nothing to do with the original or sequel books.

As Walt himself passed away the year before the The Starlight Barking was written, he obviously couldn't invest in the project. After Walt died, Disney Studios mostly abandoned animated projects for the next decade. The Jungle Book was released in 1967 (and was in production when he died), The Aristocats was released in 1970 and Robin Hood was released in 1973.

Oddly, Disney did eventually produce a Sci-Fi movie about extraterrestrial animals visiting Earth; The Cat From Outer Space was released in 1978 and was largely panned by critics.

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    I know where you are coming from but this does not actually answer the question being asked.
    – Paulie_D
    Nov 30, 2018 at 16:32
  • Yes, I own both (also have been a Dalmatian owner for over 20 years), but these are still really grounded by the animated film and the first book. The second book deals with an dog from space coming to Earth in attempts to offer the Earth dogs an opportunity to leave with him and escape Earth's upcoming nuclear war! It's so crazy, but I kind of love it. Although I can see that prob wasn't the kind of thing their animated films would of been into at the time, it def feels like something they might of been interested in once they hit the 80's or 90's and beyond.
    – Darth Locke
    Nov 30, 2018 at 16:34
  • Even with the live-action/photo realism remake/sequel, you would of thought that the second book might of come up in discussion... 1+ though for marginally trying to answer the Q with what has been made!
    – Darth Locke
    Nov 30, 2018 at 16:35

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