The directors of Disney's animated smash Tangled give Jesse Kuch the lowdown on one of the year's true family favourites.

Disney’s Nathan Greno and Byron Howard are on top of the world.

The directors of the latest animated adventure Tangled, a contemporary retelling of the age old fairytale of Rapunzel, are enjoying the fruits of two years of hard work with the film raking in impressive numbers at the box office and great reviews.

Counting itself as the most expensive animated film of all time, and one of the most expensive films ever created, it must have been a nervous wait for the bright and bubbly pair before it hit the cinemas in the US on November 24.

But there is no doubt their hard work and perseverance has paid off.

The film blasted box office records, has become the highest grossing pre-Thanksgiving Wednesday premiere in US history and broke opening records in Russia, France, Germany and more.

Speaking to timeOUT this week on a promotional trip to Australia, Byron and Nathan are clearly happy with Tangled’s runaway success.

"It’s been terrific," Byron says.

"Even just getting to come to Australia is great in itself. They never send us down here and we love it.

"To come down with a film doing so well back at home is really rewarding."

Byron said it took the work of about 500 hardworking crew members two years to complete the film.

Following Disney’s tradition of adapting age-old stories into animated family classics, Tangled is a rework of classic German fairytale Rapunzel, albeit with a few small changes from the original storyline.

While it is a computer animated 3D film, it carries the same spirit as the many classics before it, including Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, Beauty and The Beast, Dumbo and Pinocchio.

"Both Byron and I have a love for classic Disney, that’s why we work here," Nathan says with a chuckle.

"We didn’t want to go back to the same well and make a film that felt like it was made in the 1950s, but we did want it to have the appeal and art direction style from movies like Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Pinocchio or Alice In Wonderland.

"Our goal was to take the style and appeal from those and put it into a contemporary film."

Byron said he and Nathan wanted to bring something fresh and new to Disney audiences.

"Instead of a prince, you have a thief. There is a noble steed, but as you’ll see, he’s not exactly how you expect."

One of the biggest challenges the team faced was the production of the film in 3D without it being cheap or for simply making a few extra box office bucks.

Both agree that when 3D is done well it adds a major element to the film, but if done wrong, can do more harm than good.

"We went to see Tangled when it came out in the theatres, you always do to see how the general public reacts," Nathan says.

"Byron and I have both been to 3D films and we are well aware that a lot of people walk out of them and think ‘why did I pay extra money for that?’. We didn’t want to create a movie like that, we’ve seen great 3D and when it works, it’s magic.

"Every shot that we did, we made sure it would play in 2D and 3D. The sets we were building and the story ideas always checked in with that ideal."

Nathan said he and Byron looked at how the 3D would enhance the film.

"You can really immerse yourself in the film world if 3D is used well. If not, it’s gimmicky. That’s why it’s really nice to hear the audience really loves the 3D."

The technical undertakings of a project as large as this in 3D was another major hurdle to overcome, especially in the tight timeframe they were given by the Disney studios.

Faced with short schedules and multiple technical challenges, Nathan says it took a lot of perseverance from the whole team to get the film done on time.

"Especially on the schedule we had, making a film like this usually takes four years, but we were given two years to make this movie," he says.

"You have to compress everything, render times are so long, especially if you have multiple renders going on like you do when you make a 3D movie.

"It just slows everything down. Our system for making the movie was working against us a bit. There is so much animation and rendering it really is counter intuitive at times, so everything had to be smart and really creative."

Byron says while it’s impossible to go through such a process without some sort of tension, both he and Nathan managed to remain civil with each other the whole time and says this speaks a lot of their professional relationship.

"Of course there is tension in various places, but we stayed a pretty healthy pair throughout the experience," he says.

"We honestly don’t have big egos about this."

Nathan says the best ideas come from all sorts of places.

"The lantern sequence in the film came from our story artist and it made it into the film," he says.

"If the guy who gets coffee for the staff has a great idea, we would put it into the film too. We are always challenging each other and our team and that’s why it works."

Now that the film has done so well at the box office, Byron and Nathan say their next concern is to ensure Tangled stands up in 50 years alongside the many other greats in the Disney cannon.

"We are still hoping that Tangled will do a number of things," Byron says.

"It’s cool to be able to bring a classic story to life and at the same time, tell a very sincere story. A lot of times these days, there is a lot of sarcasm from other studios that makes fun of the classics."

Byron says he hopes in the future Disney can continue to bring these classic stories to life.

"Tangled proves that audiences still love these movies and there is a place for them. When you see a healthy box office, you know audiences are still getting something from it."

>> Tangled 3D officially opens on January 7 at Birch Carroll & Coyle Cairns Cinemas. Check next week’s timeOUT for the full review.

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