 According to director Kevin Lima , " thousands " of references are made to past and future works of Disney in Enchanted , which serve as both a parody of and a " giant love letter to Disney classics " . It took almost eight years for Walt Disney Studios to greenlight the production of the film because it " was always quite nervous about the tone in particular " . As Lima worked with Bill Kelly , the writer , to inject Disney references to the plot , it became " an obsession " ; he derived the name of every character as well as anything that needed a name from past Disney films to bring in more Disney references . 
