Elton John - who is executive producer for the animated film, as well as working on its soundtrack - admitted the movie had many "near-death experiences" as a result of being part of the Disney corporation, as people in the US didn`t know what to do with gnomes. He explained: "From the word go it has taken 11 years to get this film out. The last three or four years when we`ve made it has been easy but it`s had so many near-death experiences as a result of being in the Disney corporation. People didn`t really know what to do with gnomes in America. "So Dick Cook, who became the president of the studio, said, `You go away, do this film the way you want to do, with your British cast. We`ve tried to mess it up so many times`. So that`s what we did." Meanwhile, the 63-year-old star - who recently welcomed his first child Zachary with partner David Furnish - admitted he was only named as executive producer on the movie to "protect" the rest of his team, as it got things done faster. He added to BBC Radio 3: "An executive producer? It means when things are bad - and they got bad - I pick up the phone to the studio and I go, `Listen, we need to talk here, things are going bad.` "Really, basically I protect my production team. The Elton Factor is if I ring up the studio they are going to take my call quicker than if its one of the production team. And also I can ring Michael Caine and say, `Can you do this?` So really I`m protecting my film and protecting my production staff."