Shark Tale

Shark Tale is a 2004 American computer-animated comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by DreamWorks Pictures. Directed by Vicky Jenson, Bibo Bergeron, and Rob Letterman (in Letterman's feature directorial debut), the film contains an ensemble cast starring the voices of Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Renée Zellweger, Angelina Jolie, Jack Black, and Martin Scorsese. It tells the story of a fish named Oscar (Smith) who falsely claims to have killed Frankie (Imperioli), the son of a shark mob boss named Don Lino (De Niro), to advance his community standing and teams up with the mobster's other son Lenny (Black) to keep up the other facade.
"Shark Tale" premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 10, 2004, and was theatrically released in the United States on October 1. It opened at #1, earning $47.6 million, the second-highest opening for a DreamWorks Animation film at the time, behind "Shrek 2" ($108 million). "Shark Tale" remained as the #1 film in the U.S. and Canada for its second and third weekends, and made $367 million worldwide against its $75 million budget. The film received mixed reviews from critics and generated controversy for its use of Italian-American stereotypes and alleged homosexual propaganda. It was also nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 77th Academy Awards, losing to Pixar's "The Incredibles".
Plot.
In the Southside Reef, a lowly bluestreak cleaner wrasse named Oscar fantasizes about being rich and famous. Soon after arriving for work at the Whale Wash, he is called to his boss's office, a pufferfish named Sykes, to discuss the fact that he owes a large sum of money and must pay it back by the next day. He remembers being humiliated as a child because his father was a tongue scrubber, so his angelfish friend, Angie, offers him a shiny pink pearl that was a gift from her grandmother to pawn and pay his debt. Oscar brings the money to the race track to meet Sykes but hears that the race is rigged and bets it all on a seahorse named "Lucky Day." A lionfish named Lola sees this and flagrantly seduces an excited Oscar. Sykes is annoyed that Oscar bet the money but agrees to see how the race turns out. When the race start, Lucky Day's door had been blocked (revealing that the rigging was against him), but then Lucky Day smashes the door and eventually takes the lead. Moments before Lucky Day crosses the finish line, he trips and loses.
Meanwhile, a family of criminally-inclined sharks, with associates such as killer whales, swordfish, and octopuses, has a problem with one of their sons, Lenny, a vegetarian. His crime lord father, Don Edward Lino, orders his violent eldest son, Frankie, to mentor his brother in the family business. Frankie sees Oscar left for dead in the middle of the ocean by Sykes' two Jamaican jellyfish henchmen, Ernie and Bernie, and urges Lenny to eat Oscar, but Lenny instead frees Oscar and tells him to escape. Furious, Frankie charges at Oscar, but suddenly an anchor falls on him, killing him. Devastated over his brother's demise, Lenny flees. As there were no other witnesses and Oscar was seen near the body, everyone in the reef comes to believe that he killed Frankie, an opportunity that Oscar decides to exploit for fame.
Oscar returns to the reef with a new title of "Sharkslayer." Sykes becomes his manager and forgives Oscar's debt, and Oscar moves to the "top of the reef" to live in luxury. At the same time, Don Lino has everyone search for Lenny and Oscar. When several sharks approach Oscar's neighborhood, his neighbors expect him to drive them away, so he goes out and encounters Lenny. Since he does not wish to return home and face his father, Lenny begs Oscar to let him stay at Oscar's house. Soon, Angie finds out about Oscar's lie and threatens to tell everyone. Oscar and Lenny stage an event in which Lenny pretends to terrorize the town, and Oscar kills him. This further cements Oscar's popularity and causes Lola to become his girlfriend while infuriating Don Lino. Afterward, Oscar and Angie get into a heated argument. She reveals that she had feelings for Oscar even before becoming the "Sharkslayer," causing Oscar to dump Lola and reflect on the consequences of his selfishness. Lola then beats Oscar up in anger.
Soon, Oscar buys some gifts for Angie to discover that Don Lino has kidnapped her to stage a meeting. Lenny attends disguised as a dolphin named Sebastian. Don Lino threatens to eat Angie if Oscar does not comply. Lenny grabs Angie into his mouth (for Oscar to intimidate the sharks) but then regurgitates her and unintentionally reveals himself in front of everyone. Enraged, Don Lino chases Oscar through the reef. Oscar heads for the Whale Wash and trapping Don Lino, and accidentally trapping Lenny in the machinery. Everyone gives Oscar an ovation, but he finally confesses the truth behind Frankie's death. He then tells Don Lino that everyone loves Lenny for who he is and urges him to respect everyone's individual choices. Inspired by Oscar's confession, Don Lino reconciles with his son and accepts him for who he is, and states that he and his gang bear the city no ill will. Oscar forsakes all the wealth he has acquired, makes peace with the sharks, becomes co-manager of the Whale Wash, now frequented by sharks, killer whales, and swordfish, and lives happily with Angie.
Production.
The film was officially announced in April 2002, under the title of "Sharkslayer". By September 2003, it had been retitled "Shark Tale", to make the title sound less violent and more family friendly. Bill Damaschke, the producer of the film, explained the change of the title: "We set out to make a movie a little more noir, perhaps a little darker than where we've landed." "Shark Tale" is the first all computer-animated film produced at DreamWorks Animation's Glendale facility.
James Gandolfini was initially set to voice the kingpin shark, named Don Lino, but he had to drop out, with Robert De Niro taking over the role.
The film was produced concurrently with "Finding Nemo", another animated film set underwater, which was released a year and a half before "Shark Tale". DreamWorks Animation's CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg, defended the film, saying that "any similarities are mere coincidence. We've been open with the Pixar people, so we don't step on each other's toes."
Release.
"Shark Tale" was originally scheduled to be released on November 5, 2004, but was moved up to October 1, 2004 in order to avoid competition with Disney/Pixar's "The Incredibles". The film had its worldwide premiere on September 10, 2004 in Piazza San Marco in Venice, Italy. Screening as part of the Venice Film Festival, it marked the first time that Piazza San Marco was closed for a premiere of a major feature film. The film was projected on the largest inflatable screen in the world, measuring more than six stories tall and over . It required of air to inflate and more than 50 tons of water for stabilization. The premiere was attended by 6,000 visitors, including Will Smith, Angelina Jolie, Robert De Niro, and Michael Imperioli. Jeffrey Katzenberg, the executive producer of the film, explained that they "wanted to find a unique way to introduce this movie to the world. We needed a big idea. … More than anything, we are in showbusiness. This is the show part."
Home media.
"Shark Tale" was released on DVD and VHS on February 8, 2005, accompanied with a DVD-exclusive animated short film "Club Oscar". The three-and-a-half-minute short film continues where the main film ends, showing the characters of "Shark Tale" dancing at the whale wash to a spoof of "Saturday Night Fever". It was also released on Game Boy Advance Video in October 2005. The film was released on Blu-ray on February 5, 2019.
"Club Oscar".
"Club Oscar" is a five-minute computer-animated film included as a bonus feature on the DVD and VHS releases of "Shark Tale" and is set after the movie. In the short, the Whale Wash turns into a party club.
Reception.
Box office.
"Shark Tale" opened at #1 with $47.6 million, which was, at the time, the second-highest opening for a DreamWorks Animation film behind "Shrek 2" ($108 million). It remained the #1 film in the U.S. and Canada for its second and third weekends.
Overall, it grossed $160,861,908 in North America and $206,413,111 internationally, bringing its worldwide total to $367,275,019. That made it the ninth highest-grossing film of 2004.
Critical reception.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 36% based on 183 reviews, with an average rating of 5.15/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Derivative and full of pop culture in-jokes." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 48 out of 100 based on 36 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert gave "Shark Tale" two out of four stars, observing, "Since the target audience for "Shark Tale" is presumably kids and younger teenagers, how many of them have seen the R-rated "Godfather" and will get all the inside jokes? Not a few, I suppose, and some of its characters and dialogue have passed into common knowledge. But it's strange that a kid-oriented film would be based on parody of a 1972 gangster movie for adults." He also opined that younger viewers would have trouble enjoying a film about adult characters with adult problems, such as an elaborate love triangle and a main character wanting to clear his debt with loan sharks, and compared it to more successful fish-focused animated features like Pixar Animation Studios' "Finding Nemo", which Ebert felt featured a simpler plot that audiences could more easily identify with. Richard Roeper commented that although the film was not on the same level as "Finding Nemo", it was a film worth seeing.
Todd McCarthy of "Variety" was critical of the film's lack of originality: "Overfamiliarity extends to the story, jokes and music, most of which reference popular entertainment of about 30 years ago" noting that the script combines "The Godfather" and "Jaws", with a dash of "Car Wash". McCarthy calls Smith's character "tiresomely familiar", and Zellweger's "entirely uninteresting", but praises the vocal performance of Martin Scorcese. Kirk Honeycutt of "The Hollywood Reporter" said the film was not as good as "Shrek", but called it "an overly jokey but often quite entertaining spoof that should please families everywhere."
Social commentary.
"Shark Tale" has received controversy for perpetuating negative stereotypes of Italian-Americans in its antagonists. Politician Bill Pascrell said: "The prevailing message is negative and they have to be held out to dry for it. I'm a very proud Italian-American. When you stereotype me, it's like making fun of my grandparents". Dona De Sanctis, deputy executive director of the Order Sons of Italy in America, said: "We were very concerned about this type of stereotyping being passed on to another generation of children." John Mancini, the founder of the Italic Institute of America, protested the movie, stating: "We're concerned about what preteens are learning from the outside world. They don't associate other groups as criminals, they only know Italians as gangsters. Our goal here is to de-Italianize it." The protest was coordinated by the
Italian American One Voice Coalition of New Jersey. DreamWorks reacted by changing the name of Peter Falk's character from Don Brizzi to Don Feinberg. However, Mancini demanded that everything Italian—character names, the mannerisms, the forms of speech—be dropped.
The American Family Association, a Christian conservative organization, raised concerns about "Shark Tale", suggesting that it was designed to promote the acceptance of gay rights by children.
Soundtrack.
Shark Tale: Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on September 21, 2004. The soundtrack features newly recorded music by various artists, including Justin Timberlake, Sean Paul, Timbaland, Christina Aguilera, JoJo, Ludacris, Mary J. Blige, and The Pussycat Dolls, as well as the film's closing theme composed by Hans Zimmer.
Janet Jackson and Beyoncé initially planned to record a duet for the film's soundtrack. Jackson's frequent collaborator Jimmy Jam, who had recently worked with Beyoncé for "The Fighting Temptations" soundtrack, commented, "Obviously we'd love to have the involvement of Janet and Beyonce, who we just worked with on "Fighting Temptations". They've already expressed interest", adding "There are a lot of opportunities with an animated piece to work with some different people." Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation, had appointed Jackson's producers Jam & Lewis to be involved with the soundtrack, though the duo only ended up producing only one song for the film, with Jam saying "We worked for DreamWorks before on the Bryan Adams song for "" and the Boyz II Men tune for "The Prince of Egypt", and Katzenberg is a fan of what we do. He thought we would be perfect to do the music for "Shark Tale.""
Video game.
A video game based on the film was released on September 29, 2004 for Microsoft Windows, Xbox, GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Game Boy Advance. Published by Activision, Edge of Reality developed the console versions of the game, while Vicarious Visions developed the Game Boy Advance version, and Amaze Entertainment developed the Microsoft Windows version. The cast from the film did not reprise their roles in the game.
Future.
In April 2011, DreamWorks Animation's CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg, commented that the studio did not have plans to produce future movie genre parodies like "Shark Tale", "Monsters vs. Aliens", and "Megamind", saying that these films "all shared an approach and tone and idea of parody, and did not travel well internationally. We don't have anything like that coming on our schedule now."