 From early on , it had been decided that The Spirits Within would be filmed entirely in English . The original script , written by Sakaguchi , was titled Gaia . The screenplay was written by Al Reinert and Jeff Vintar . The film was co @-@ directed by Motonori Sakakibara , with Jun Aida and Chris Lee both serving as producers . Lee compared the The Spirits Within , the first full @-@ length photorealistic animated film , to Walt Disney 's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , the first full @-@ length cel animated film . In order to keep the film in line with Hironobu Sakaguchi 's vision as director , several script rewrites took place , most in the initial stages of production . Sakaguchi stated he was pleased with the film 's final cut , saying he would not have changed anything if given the chance . The film had high cost overruns towards the end of filming . New funds had to be sourced to cover the increasing production costs while maintaining staff salaries . The film 's final cost of $ 137 million , which included about $ 30 million spent on marketing by the film 's distributor Columbia Pictures , escalated from an original budget rumored to be around $ 70 million . $ 45 million alone was spent on the construction of Square 's studio in Hawaii . 
