| Dolittle | |
|---|---|
.png) Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Stephen Gaghan |
| Screenplay by |
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| Story by | Thomas Shepherd |
| Based on | Doctor Dolittle byHugh Lofting |
| Produced by | |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Guillermo Navarro |
| Edited by | |
| Music by | Danny Elfman |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by |
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Release dates |
|
Running time | 101 minutes |
| Countries | |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $175–192.4 million[2][3] |
| Box office | $251 million[4] |
Dolittle is a 2020fantasyadventure film directed byStephen Gaghan from a screenplay by Gaghan, Dan Gregor, and Doug Mand, based on a story by Thomas Shepherd.Dolittle is based on thetitle character created byHugh Lofting and is primarily inspired by the author's second Doctor Dolittle book,The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (1922).Robert Downey Jr. stars as the title character, alongsideAntonio Banderas,Michael Sheen, andHarry Collett in live-action roles, withEmma Thompson,Rami Malek,John Cena,Kumail Nanjiani,Octavia Spencer,Tom Holland,Ralph Fiennes,Selena Gomez, andMarion Cotillard voicing an array of creatures.
It is the third iteration of film adaptions based on the character, after the 1967 musicalDoctor Dolittle starringRex Harrison and the 1998–2015Dr. Dolittle film series starringEddie Murphy as the titular character and laterKyla Pratt as his daughter Maya, and the only one not to be distributed by 20th Century Fox (now20th Century Studios).
The project was announced asThe Voyage of Doctor Dolittle in March 2017 with Downey set to star, and the rest of the cast joined over the following year. Filming began in March 2018 and lasted through June, taking place around the United Kingdom. The film underwent three weeks of reshoots in the spring of 2019, directed byJonathan Liebesman and written byChris McKay, after initial test screenings yielded poor results.
Universal Pictures theatrically releasedDolittle in the United States on January 17, 2020. The film received generally negative reviews from critics and grossed $251 million worldwide, making it abox-office failure for a reported loss of $50–100 million. However, due to theCOVID-19 pandemic, it was theseventh highest-grossing film of 2020. It was nominated for sixGolden Raspberry Awards, includingWorst Picture, winning forWorst Remake, Rip-off or Sequel.
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InVictorian eraBritain,Dr. John Dolittle is a Welsh veterinarian with the ability to communicate with animals. After his wifeLily dies at sea, Dolittle retreats from human society and only tends to animals at his sanctuary thatQueen Victoria gifted him.
Years later,Tommy Stubbins, a young boy, accidentally wounds ared squirrel named Kevin while out with his hunter uncle Arnall and cousin Arnall Jr. He finds himself led to Dolittle's home by hismacawPolynesia, who hopes his arrival will help Dolittle reconnect with humans. At the same time, Queen Victoria dispatches her maid of honor, Lady Rose, to seek Dolittle's help when she falls seriously ill. After treating Kevin, Dolittle agrees to see Victoria, after Poly reveals he will lose his home to theTreasury if the queen dies. At her palace, Dolittle finds Victoria being tended to by his lifelong rival, Dr. Blair Müdfly. Examining her himself in the presence of Müdfly and Lord Thomas Badgley, a member of the House of Lords, he discovers she was poisoned withnightshade and can only be cured with themagical fruit from theEden Tree.
Dolittle mounts an expedition to handle this, leaving hisdogJip and hisstick insect Styx to keep an eye on the Queen while he is away. Although he takes along several animals for the journey, includingChee-Chee thegorilla, Yoshi thepolar bear, and Poly, he refuses to take Tommy. Poly, refusing to let Tommy be left behind, sends Betsy thegiraffe and Tutu thefox to collect him. He manages to reach the ship and helps out after beginning to learn how to talk to animals, especially when Müdfly begins pursuing Dolittle to impede his efforts.
Dolittle returns in time to cure Victoria, before revealing that Badgley had poisoned her to take the crown for himself. The queen has him sent to theTower of London for treason, thanking Dolittle for saving her.
Returning home, Dolittle re-opens it to others, while taking on Tommy as his apprentice.
In March 2017,Robert Downey Jr. was cast to star inThe Voyage of Doctor Dolittle, a feature adaptation ofHugh Lofting's second publishedDoctor Dolittle book,The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle.[6] Downey was paid $20 million for his involvement.[7] In December,Harry Collett andJim Broadbent were also cast, in live-action roles.[8][9] The following year in February,Antonio Banderas andMichael Sheen were added to the live-action cast, whileTom Holland,Emma Thompson,Ralph Fiennes, andSelena Gomez were cast to voice animals, including Barry, a tiger, Yoshi, a bear, and Regine, a lioness.[10][11] In March,Kumail Nanjiani,Octavia Spencer,John Cena,Rami Malek,Craig Robinson,Marion Cotillard,Frances de la Tour andCarmen Ejogo all signed on for voice roles as well.[12] The character of Regine, the lioness voiced by Ejogo, was cut from the finished film.[citation needed]
Principal production commenced mid-February 2018. Live-action scenes began filming inKirkby Lonsdale,Cumbria in May, with further location filming at South Forest,Windsor Great Park, atCothay Manor inStawley,Somerset and on theMenai Suspension Bridge inNorth West Wales, in June.[13][14]
The film went through 21 days ofre-shoots in April 2019 following poor test screenings. DirectorJonathan Liebesman helped to oversee the filming alongsideStephen Gaghan, whileChris McKay wrote new material after it became clear from first cuts that the comedy elements of the film were not coming together as well as the producers had hoped.[2] Prior to this,Universal had turned towardsSeth Rogen andNeighbors co-writerBrendan O'Brien to help add comedy to the film, but neither could remain committed to the project and dropped out. McKay was assigned to storyboard sequences and assemble different edits before later leaving to instead directThe Tomorrow War. Liebesman took over McKay's duties and finished the film alongside Gaghan.The Lego Batman Movie scribeJohn Whittington had also performed rewrites on the script amid reshoots, and flew toLondon to meet with Downey, who allegedly tore Whittington's script apart in favor of "new ideas".The Hollywood Reporter stated that despite a "challenged production", there were no fights for power and no competing cuts for the film.[15] The film's title was changed fromThe Voyage of Doctor Dolittle to simplyDolittle in August.[16] The film was budgeted at $175 million before reshoots.[2] According to financial statements analyzed byForbes the film spent a total of $233.6 million, with a net cost of $192.4 million after UK tax credits.[3]
In January 2020, onJoe Rogan's podcastThe Joe Rogan Experience, Downey Jr. discussed the inspiration for the Dr. John Dolittle character in the film, which he said stemmed from aWelsh neo-pagan physician calledWilliam Price: "Same way I did withIron Man... before I signed on, I was just googling 'weirdest Welsh doctor', I just wanted to think of, I don't want to just do another English accent.. so there was this guy called William Price, who's a nutty Welsh doctor, he was a neo-druidist, he believed that he could communicate with all nature and all that stuff, so I sent a picture of this wild looking guy wearing this kind of suit with stars on it and like a staff in his hand [to Gaghan]... and he goes, "That looks good to me" and I was like "great let's do this movie"".[17]
Music artistSia performed a new song of hers, "Original", for the end credits, whileDanny Elfman composed the film's score.[18]
The film was released by Universal Pictures. It was originally set for May 24, 2019, but was moved to April 12 of that year, to avoid competition withStar Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which itself was later moved from May to December 20, 2019. The film was later moved again to January 17, 2020.[19]
Dolittle was released onDigital HD on March 24, 2020, and onDVD,Blu-ray, andUltra HD Blu-ray on April 7.[20] As of July 12, 2020, the film had made $14.3 million in home media sales.[4]
Dolittle grossed $77 million in the United States and Canada, and $174.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $251.5 million.[4] Due to its high production and marketing costs,The New York Observer estimated that the film needed to gross over $500 million worldwide tobreak even;[21] following its debut weekend, it was estimated the film would lose Universal between $50–100 million.[22][23]
In the United States and Canada, the film was released alongsideBad Boys for Life, and was projected to gross $20–22 million from 4,155 theaters in its three-day opening weekend, and a total of around $27 million over the full four-dayMartin Luther King Jr. Day weekend.[24][25] It made $6.3 million on its first day, including $925,000 from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $22 million for three days, and $29.5 million over the four-day frame, finishing second, behindBad Boys for Life.[22] The film made $12.1 million in its second weekend and $7.7 million in its third, remaining in second both times.[26][27]
After months of delays, the film was released in China on July 24, and made $5.2 million from about 3,000 screens in its opening weekend.[28] By August 6, the film had reached $14.6 million in grosses in the country.[29]
OnRotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 15% based on 242 reviews, with an average rating of 4/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Dolittle may be enough to entertain very young viewers, but they deserve better than this rote adaptation's jumbled story and stale humour."[30] OnMetacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 26 out of 100, based on 46 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.[31] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, whilePostTrak reported an average of 3 out of 5 stars from viewers they surveyed.[22]
American critic Courtney Howard ofVariety called the film a "frenetic, crass kids' flick" and wrote: "What should have been an awe-filled adventure quickly curdles into an awful one, thanks to a pedestrian formula and the filmmakers' fixation on fart jokes".[32] Writing forThe Hollywood Reporter, American criticTodd McCarthy said: "From the very first scene, it's clear something is terribly off with this lavishly misbegotten attempt to repopularize an animal-loaded literary franchise that was born exactly a century ago. The oddly diffident star and executive producer Robert Downey Jr. never finds the power-supplying third rail needed to energize a tale that fails to make a real case for being reinterpreted".[33]
British criticMark Kermode gave the film a negative review: "Terrible script. Terrible visuals. Dull plot. Dismal gags. The fact (is) that at 101 minutes it really, really tested one's patience. It is shockingly poor".[34] In examining the film's ending, American critic Lisa Laman ofScreen Rant noted that the film as a whole suffered from numerous problems, including "...Dolittle's new backstory involving a deceased wife...the largely lifeless voice-over work of the animal characters [and] its painfully unfunny comedy".[35]
Much of the criticism focused on Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayal of the character with a Welsh accent, which the actor himself called "the single hardest accent on Earth". Mark Kermode derided the attempt calling it "something from Mars", comparing it unfavorably with the Welsh actor Michael Sheen's use of an English accent and suggesting the film had been heavilydubbed.[36] Welsh reviewers were more positive. Simon Thompson praised the attempt, stating "it's a brave choice, I take my hat off to Robert Downey Jr. for going for it" and "as flawed as it is, it warmed the cockles of my heart to hear a Welsh accent in the cinema".[37] Another Welsh reviewer said that appraisal of the accent "depends on how much love you have for him in attempting to do it in the first place", arguing that he had "clearly swotted up onthe dialect, dropping in random phrases like"tidy" and"mun", along with"I'll be there in a minute now" and"twty down"".[38]
A segment in the film in which Dolittle removes bagpipes from Ginko-Who-Soars (de la Tour)'s'anus, inducingflatulence, was criticised as "gross" and "disgusting".[39][40][41] In a retrospective article,The Telegraph called it "a set-piece that will be forever seared into the minds of those unfortunate enough to sit through it".[42]
Robert Downey Jr. later referred to the movie as "a two-and-a-half-year wound of squandered opportunity", and noted that its troubled production and failure led to a major rethinking of his career and life.[43]
In 2025, the film toppedScreenCrush's list of "The 10 Worst Movies of the Last 10 Years," with Matt Singer writing "What had started as a presumably more serious affair was turned into a cinematicFrankenstein's monster of poop jokes, fart jokes, itchy butt jokes, talking animals, wonky CGI, and Robert Downey Jr. going so big and broad he makesJohnny Depp'sCaptain Jack Sparrow look like an introvert."[44]
| Award | Ceremony date | Category | Subject | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Costume Designers Guild Awards | April 13, 2021 | Excellence in Sci-Fi/Fantasy Film | Jenny Beavan | Nominated | [45] |
| Golden Raspberry Awards | April 24, 2021 | Worst Picture | Joe Roth,Jeff Kirschenbaum andSusan Downey | Nominated | [46] |
| Worst Director | Stephen Gaghan | Nominated | |||
| Worst Actor | Robert Downey Jr. | Nominated | |||
| Worst Screenplay | Stephen Gaghan andDan Gregor & Doug Mand; Based on thecharacter byHugh Lofting | Nominated | |||
| Worst Screen Combo | Robert Downey Jr. and his utterly unconvincing "Welsh" accent | Nominated | |||
| Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel | Won | ||||
| Kids' Choice Awards | March 13, 2021 | Favorite Movie | Nominated | [47] | |
| Favorite Movie Actor | Robert Downey Jr. | Won | |||
| People's Choice Awards | November 15, 2020 | Family Movie of 2020 | Nominated | [48] | |
| Male Movie Star of 2020 | Robert Downey Jr. | Nominated | |||
| Set Decorators Society of America Awards | March 31, 2021 | Best Achievement in Décor/Design of a Comedy or Musical Feature Film | Lee Sandales and Dominic Watkins | Nominated | [49] |
over the five years to June 30, 2022, a staggering $233.6 million (£180.3 million) was spent
