Quest for Camelot

Quest for Camelot (released in the United Kingdom as The Magic Sword: Quest for Camelot) is a 1998 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Warner Bros. Feature Animation and directed by Frederik Du Chau and very loosely based on the 1976 novel "The King's Damosel" by Vera Chapman. It features the voices of Jessalyn Gilsig, Cary Elwes, Gary Oldman, Eric Idle, Don Rickles, Jaleel White, Jane Seymour, Pierce Brosnan, Gabriel Byrne, and John Gielgud. Andrea Corr, Bryan White and Celine Dion also do the singing voices of the main characters.
In May 1995, the film, initially titled "The Quest for the Holy Grail", was announced to be Warner Bros. Feature Animation's first project, with Bill Kroyer as the film's director. The film went into production later that year, but it was delayed when animators were re-assigned to help finish "Space Jam" (1996). During the interim, the story was heavily re-tooled, among of which the central focus on the Holy Grail would be replaced with Excalibur. This resulted in creative differences, in which Kroyer was replaced with Frederik Du Chau. This was later followed with prominent departures of the film's animation and management staff. Because of the production troubles, the film's release was delayed from November 1997 to May 1998. Animation for the film was mostly done in Glendale, California and London. 
"Quest for Camelot" was released by Warner Bros. under their Family Entertainment label on May 15, 1998. It was an "expensive flop", grossing $38.1 million against a budget of $40 million. One of the film's songs "The Prayer" won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Plot.
Sir Lionel is one of the knights of the Round Table. His daughter Kayley dreams of becoming a knight like her father. At Camelot, one of the knights, an evil lord named Sir Ruber - wanting to overthrow King Arthur - attempts to assassinate him, but Lionel sacrifices himself to save him, but he is killed by Ruber, who flees Camelot in exile after being repelled by Arthur's sword, Excalibur. During Lionel's funeral, Arthur tells Kayley and her mother, Juliana, that they will be welcomed should they come to Camelot. Over the years, Kayley trains herself to become a knight while attending to her duties on her family's farm.
A decade later, Ruber's griffin attacks Camelot, stealing Excalibur. Merlin's pet falcon Ayden attacks the griffin causing the sword to fall into the Forbidden Forest. The Griffin flies away after a fight with the thorn bushed creatures. The next day, Kayley and Juliana argue over her going off to look for Excalibur herself. That night, Ruber invades Kayley's home, holds everyone hostage, and uses a potion he purchased from witches to create steel warriors from his human henchmen and a henpecked rooster, who becomes known as Bladebeak. He plans to use Juliana to gain entrance into Camelot.
After escaping and overhearing on Ruber and The Griffin's conversation, Kayley enters the Forbidden Forest where she encounters Garrett, a blind hermit, and Ayden, who save her from the Steel Men and Bladebeak sent by Ruber to capture her. Kayley convinces him to help her find Excalibur, much to his reluctance. They enter Dragon Country and meet a wisecracking two-headed dragon named Devon and Cornwall, who hate each other, cannot breathe fire or fly, and want to be two individual dragons. After escaping from the attacking dragons and Ruber with his henchmen, Devon and Cornwall decide to join the group; Garrett reluctantly agrees after Kayley convinces him. They camp in the forest, where Kayley learns that Garrett was once a stable boy in Camelot, and was blinded by one of the horses that he was rescuing from a stable fire. Lionel stood by Garrett, and taught him to adapt to his conditions.
The next day, they find the belt of Excalibur in a giant footprint. Kayley's insistence of distracting Garrett causes him to miss Ayden's signal, and he is injured by one of Ruber's men. Kayley uses the thorn bushed creatures to trap Ruber and his men, and escorts Garrett into a remote cave where the magic of the forest heals Garrett's wounds. Whilst in the cave, Kayley and Garrett begin to fall in love. The next day, the group goes into a giant cave where a rock-like ogre holds Excalibur, using it as a toothpick. Kayley succeeds in retrieving Excalibur and they escape before Ruber can get to it.
Exiting the forest with Excalibur, Garrett chooses to stay in the forest, feeling uncomfortable in Camelot. After he leaves, Ruber captures Kayley, takes Excalibur and fuses it with his right arm, before having Kayley thrown in the wagon with Juliana. Devon and Cornwall, who witness this, rush to Garrett and convince him to save Kayley. By working together for the first time, Devon and Cornwall are able to fly and breathe fire, and they fly Garrett to Camelot. Bladebeak reconciles with his constantly henpecking hen and frees Kayley from her ropes, and she warns the guards of Ruber's trap, exposing him and his Steel Men. Garrett, Devon and Cornwall arrive in the nick of time and Garrett comes to her aid and they enter the castle while Devon and Cornwall rescue Ayden from The Griffin's clutches and hold off The Griffin.
Inside, they find Ruber attempting to kill Arthur with Excalibur, gloating about how all-powerful he has become now. Kayley and Garrett intervene and trick Ruber into returning Excalibur to its stone, causing its magic to disintegrate Ruber, reverts the Steel Men, including Bladebeak, back to normal and temporarily separates Devon and Cornwall, but they end up back together whilst hugging each other. Later, with Camelot restored to its former glory, Kayley and Garrett marry and become Knights of the Round Table.
Production.
In May 1995, "The Quest for the Grail" was Warner Bros. Feature Animation's first announced project. Bill Kroyer and Frederik Du Chau were announced as the directors, with Sue Kroyer serving as co-producer. The initial story centered around a young female character named Susannah who embarks on a dangerous quest for the Holy Grail to save her sister from a ruthless and powerful knight. The film was put into production before the story was finalized, but during the fall of 1995, animators were reassigned to finish "Space Jam" (1996). Meanwhile, in April 1996, Christopher Reeve was cast as King Arthur. During the interim, several story changes were made that resulted in creative differences between the Kroyers and the studio management. In particular, the Holy Grail was replaced with Excalibur, in which Warner Bros. Feature Animation president Max Howard felt better reflected the film's setting: "The symbol of Camelot is the power of Excalibur, and that became a more interesting theme: Whoever held the sword, held the power." By the middle of 1996, the Kroyers were allegedly fired by Howard, who later moved on to developing another project at Warner Bros. Feature Animation.
Following the departure of the Kroyers, two supervising animators along with several employees in the studio's art department subsequently left the project. The film's initial producer, Frank Gladstone, left the project in February 1997 and was replaced with Dalisa Cohen. Effects supervisor Michel Gagné recalled that "People were giving up. The head of layout was kicked out, the head of background, the executive producer, the producer, the director, the associate producer—all the heads rolled. It's kind of a hard environment to work in." Eventually, Du Chau was promoted to be the film's director. Meanwhile, Reeve was replaced by Pierce Brosnan when he became unavailable to record new dialogue.
In an article in "Animation Magazine", Chrystal Klabunde, the leading animator of Garrett, stated, "It was top heavy. All the executives were happily running around and playing executive, getting corner offices—but very few of them had any concept about animation at all, about doing an animated film. It never occurred to anybody at the top that they had to start from the bottom and build that up. The problems were really coming at the inexperience of everyone involved. Those were people from Disney that had the idea that you just said, 'Do it,' and it gets done. It never occurred to them that it got done because Disney had an infrastructure in place, working like clockwork. We didn't have that." Reportedly, "cost overruns and production nightmares" led the studio to "reconsider their commitment to feature animation." Filmmaker Brad Bird (who helmed "The Iron Giant", Warner Bros.' next animated film) thought that micromanaging, which he said had worked well for Disney but not for Warner Bros., had been part of the problem.
Animation.
The film was mainly animated at the main Warner Bros. Feature Animation facility located in Glendale, California and London, England. In January 1996, the London animation studio was opened where more than 50 animators were expected to animate 20 minutes of animation, which would be sent back to Glendale to be inked-and-painted. Additional studios that worked on the film included Yowza! Animation in Toronto, Ontario, where they assisted in clean-up animation, Heart of Texas Productions in Austin, and A. Film A/S in Copenhagen where, along with London, about a quarter of the film was animated overseas. The supervising animators were Athanassios Vakalis for Kayley, Chrystal Klabunde for Garrett, Cynthia Overman for Juliana, Alexander Williams for Ruber, Dan Wagner for Devon and Cornwall, Stephan Franck for the Griffin and Bladebeak, and Mike Nguyen for Ayden.
To create the rock-like ogre and other computer-generated effects, the production team used Silicon Graphics' Alias Research software. According to Katherine Percy, the head of CGI effects, the software was originally designed for special effects used in live-action films.
Music.
On January 31, 1996, Carole Bayer Sager and David Foster were attached to compose several songs for the film. The album peaked at #117 on the "Billboard" 200, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for "The Prayer". The song was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, though it lost to "When You Believe" from DreamWorks' "The Prince of Egypt".
On the soundtrack, "The Prayer" was performed separately by Celine Dion in English, and by Andrea Bocelli in Italian. The now better-known Dion-Bocelli duet in both languages first appeared in October 1998 on Dion's Christmas album "These Are Special Times"; it was also released as a single in March 1999 and on Bocelli's album "Sogno" in April 1999.
"Looking Through Your Eyes" was the lead single for the soundtrack. Other original songs composed for the film include "I Stand Alone", "United We Stand", "On My Father's Wings", "Ruber", and "If I Didn't Have You".
Release.
The film was originally slated for November 1997, but was pushed to May 1998 to give the production team more time to finish the film.
Marketing.
The film was accompanied with a promotional campaign with promotional licensees including Wendy's and Kenner Products. It also partnered with Scholastic to produce children's books based on the film.
Home media.
"Quest for Camelot" was released on VHS and DVD by Warner Home Video on October 13, 1998. The VHS edition includes a teaser trailer for Warner Bros. and Morgan Creek Productions' "The King and I" (1999) and the Tom and Jerry cartoon, "The Three Mouseketeers", while the DVD included several making-of documentaries with interviews of the filmmakers and cast and a music video of "I Stand Alone". To help promote the home video release of the film, Warner Bros. partnered with Act II, American Express, Best Western, CoinStar, Continental Airlines, Smucker's, and UNICEF, which advertised its trick-or-treat donation boxes before Halloween arrived. 
Reception.
Critical response.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 45% based on 29 reviews, with an average rating of 5.28/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Diminished by uneven animation and treacly songs," Quest for Camelot" is an adventure that ought to be tossed back to the Lady in the Lake." Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a B+ on a grade scale from A to F.
Owen Gleiberman, reviewing for "Entertainment Weekly", wrote, "The images are playful and serviceably lush, but the story and characters might have come out of a screenwriting software program, and the songs (sung by Celine Dion and Steve Perry, among others) are Vegas-pop wallpaper." David Kronke of the "Los Angeles Times" described the film as "formulaic" and wrote that it was "a nearly perfect reflection of troubling trends in animated features". He called Kayley "a standard-issue spunky female heroine" and said that "Garrett's blindness is the one adventurous element to the film, but even it seems calculated; his lack of sight is hardly debilitating, yet still provides kids a lesson in acceptance."
Critical of the story, animation, characters, and music, James Berardinelli of "ReelViews" wrote that the film was "dull, uninspired, and, worst of all, characterized by artwork that could charitably be called 'unimpressive. Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" wrote, "Coming on the heels of 20th Century Fox's lush but silly "Anastasia" (a much better film than this one), "Quest for Camelot" suggests that Disney still owns the artistic franchise on animated features." Kevin J. Harty, an editor of a collection of essays titled "Cinema Arthuriana", says that the film is "slightly indebted to, rather than, as Warner publicity claims, actually based on" Chapman's novel.
Peter Stack of the "San Francisco Chronicle" said that the film is "a spirited adventure with generous romantic and comic charms" that "aims to please a range of ages, with loopy gags, corny romance, an oversized villain and catchy tunes performed by Celine Dion and LeAnn Rimes, among others." Joe Leydon of "Variety" considered the film as a "lightweight but likable fantasy that offers a playfully feminist twist to Arthurian legends" and noted that the "animation, though not quite up to Disney standards, is impressive enough on its own terms to dazzle the eye and serve the story."
Box office.
"Quest for Camelot" grossed $6 million on its opening weekend ranking third behind "Godzilla", "The Horse Whisperer" and "Deep Impact". The film ultimately grossed $22.5 million during its theatrical run in North America. Cumulatively, the film grossed $38.1 million worldwide. The studio lost about $40 million on the film.
Accolades.
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
Adaptations.
Stage adaptation.
Prior to the release of the film, Warner Bros. had plans to make a stage adaptation of the film that would tour around to different renaissance fairs throughout the United States, as well as a nightly fireworks show for Six Flags Great Adventure. Both shows were designed by SLG Design & Creative Talent and Steve Gilliam.
The touring aspect of the project was cancelled soon after the film's release due to poor box office performance and the tour's anticipated cost, but the nightly firework show did end up coming to fruition. Quest for Camelot Nights debuted at Six Flags Great Adventure in 1998, and ran through 2001.
The show told the story of the film, with much of the film's main characters appearing as live characters in the show. The film's musical numbers were acted out with scenes from the film displayed with projections onto the show's "water curtains".
Audiobook.
The Quest for Camelot Audio Action-Adventure was a follow along audiobook based on the film. Released April 7, 1998, the interactive story features two new songs that weren't included in the movie, "Camelot" and "To Be a Knight". Initially announced in 1996, the audiobook was scheduled to be released October 1997, but was delayed until April 1998. The story was narrated by Val Bettin.
Video games.
The first video game was titled "Quest for Camelot" and is an action-adventure video game developed and published by Titus Interactive with assistance from Nintendo for the Game Boy Color in 1998. A Nintendo 64 version of the game was planned, but was scrapped due to the film's performance at the box office. The second video game was titled "Quest for Camelot: Dragon Games" is a computer game developed by Knowledge Adventure, it gives the player the ability to explore Camelot after the events of the film. In addition to exploring the world, the player gets to raise a dragon egg and watch it grow.