| Quest for Camelot | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster byJohn Alvin | |
| Directed by | Frederik Du Chau |
| Screenplay by |
|
| Based on | The King's Damosel byVera Chapman |
| Produced by | Dalisa Cooper Cohen |
| Starring | |
| Edited by | Stanford C. Allen |
| Music by | Patrick Doyle[1] |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date |
|
Running time | 86 minutes[2] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $40 million[3] |
| Box office | $38.1 million[3] |
Quest for Camelot (released internationally asThe Magic Sword: Quest for Camelot) is a 1998 American animatedmusicalfantasy film directed byFrederik Du Chau. Inspired by the 1976 novelThe King's Damosel byVera Chapman, the film starsJessalyn Gilsig,Cary Elwes,Gary Oldman,Eric Idle,Don Rickles,Jane Seymour,Pierce Brosnan,Bronson Pinchot,Jaleel White,Gabriel Byrne andJohn Gielgud (in his final film role). The story follows Kayley (Gilsig), an adventurous young woman whose father was aKnight of the Round Table killed by the power-hungry Sir Ruber (Oldman). When Ruber's renewed plot to usurpCamelot fromKing Arthur (Brosnan) by stealing Arthur's swordExcalibur goes awry, Kayley joins the blind hermit Garrett (Elwes) and a two-headeddragon, Devon and Cornwall (Idle and Rickles), in a quest to retrieve the sword and save the kingdom.
Initially titledThe Quest for theHoly Grail, the film was announced in May 1995 asWarner Bros. Feature Animation's debut project, withBill Kroyer and Du Chau jointly directing the film. It began production later that year, but faced delays when animators were reassigned to help finishSpace Jam (1996). During the interim, the story was heavily reworked, with the story's central focus being changed from the Holy Grail to Excalibur. Creative differences spurred by these alterations resulted in prominent members of the animation and management staff, including Kroyer, leaving the project. Due to its troubled production, the film's release was pushed back by six months. Animation was mostly done inGlendale, California and inLondon.[4][5]
Quest for Camelot was released byWarner Bros. under theirFamily Entertainment label on May 15, 1998, in the US andCanada. It received mixed reviews[6] and was acommercial failure, grossing $38.1 million against a $40 million budget.[7] One of the film's songs, "The Prayer", won theGolden Globe Award for Best Original Song and was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Original Song.
Sir Lionel, aknight of theRound Table, is killed foiling anassassination attempt onKing Arthur by the evil Sir Ruber, who is then driven off byExcalibur, Arthur's sword. During Lionel's funeral, Arthur informs Lionel's widow Lady Juliana and his daughter Kayley thatCamelot is always open to them. Kayley dreams of becoming a knight, like her father, and she trains herself while working on the farm.
A decade later, Ruber'sgriffin attacks Camelot and steals Excalibur, leaving Arthur injured.Merlin the wizard's pet falcon Ayden attacks the griffin, causing it to drop the sword into the Forbidden Forest. When Kayley learns what has occurred, she plans to search for Excalibur, but gets into an argument with her mother, who fears for her life. Ruber attacks the farm and abducts Kayley and Juliana with intent of using them to gain access to Camelot. He uses a potion he acquired from witches to fuse his henchmen and a henpeckedrooster named Bladebeak with their weapons. Ruber becomes angry when he learns Excalibur is lost in the Forbidden Forest. Overhearing this, Kayley escapes into the forest, pursued by the steel men and Bladebeak. She is saved by ablindhermit Garrett and Ayden. After learning of the theft, Garrett plans to find Excalibur with Ayden and Kayley persuades Garrett to let her join the quest. Meanwhile, Ruber learns of this from Bladebeak and decides to follow them to obtain Excalibur.
Kayley and Garrett encounter a wisecracking two-headeddragon Devon and Cornwall. The two dislike each other and dream of being separated; due to their disagreement, they cannot fly or breathe fire. After helping them evade from a group of attacking dragons, who are taken out by Ruber and his henchmen, Devon and Cornwall join their quest. During a night of rest, much to Kayley's reluctance, Garrett reveals he was once astable boy in Camelot who dreamt of becoming a knight. While saving horses from a fire, he was kicked in the head which caused his blindness. Following the accident, Lionel still believed in Garrett and trained him personally. Garrett teaches Kayley more about the forest, including the existence of magical healing plants.
The next day, after only finding Excalibur's belt in a giant footprint, Kayley's frustrated ranting unintentionally distracts Garrett from hearing Ayden's warning, causing him to get injured by Ruber's men. Kayley saves him by using the sentient trees to trap Ruber and his men. She escorts Garrett to a remote cave where she uses a healing plant to heal his wounds. They reconcile and profess their love for each other. Discovering the scabbard, the group enter a giant cave where a rock-likeogre holds Excalibur, using it as a toothpick. They recover Excalibur and manage to evade Ruber.
After reaching the end of the forest, Garrett gives Excalibur to Kayley and returns to the forest, claiming he does not belong in Camelot. However, Ruber captures Kayley and takes Excalibur. He melds it to his right arm with his potion before imprisoning Kayley in the wagon with Juliana. Devon and Cornwall witness this and inform Garrett, who decides to go and rescue Kayley. By collaborating for the first time, Devon and Cornwall are able to fly and breathe fire, and they fly Garrett to Camelot. Meanwhile, Bladebeak reconciles with his constantly henpeckinghen and frees Kayley from her ropes. She warns the guards of Ruber's trap, exposing him and his steel men. Garrett, Devon and Cornwall arrive shortly to assist.
While Devon and Cornwall save Ayden by breathing fire at the griffin, Kayley and Garrett find Ruber attempting to kill Arthur inside the castle. They intervene and trick Ruber into returning Excalibur back into its stone. Ruber is vaporized by the stone's magic, which reverts his henchmen, Bladebeak, and Excalibur to their original forms, heals Arthur, and temporarily separates Devon and Cornwall, who decide to be reunited. Later, with Excalibur returned to Arthur, Kayley and Garrett become knights of the Round Table and they ride off into the distance on their horse.
In May 1995,The Quest for the Grail wasWarner Bros. Feature Animation's first announced project.Bill Kroyer andFrederik 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 theHoly Grail to save her sister froma ruthless and powerful knight.[8] Elizabeth Chandler, who had co-written the screenplay forA Little Princess (1995), was enlisted to write the script.[8] However, she was replaced by a team of several screenwriters, which includedKirk DeMicco (who went on to directThe Croods andRuby Gillman, Teenage Kraken). Prior to his involvement, DeMicco had sold his spec scriptA Day in November to Warner Bros. for $1 million.[9] According toLauren Faust, who was an animator for the film, it was initially envisioned with aPG-13 rating and was meant to draw homage toRalph Bakshi'sWizards (1977), but it was changed to be more family-friendly to compete with theDisney Renaissance films.[10]
The film was put into production before the story was finalized. However, during the fall of 1995, the animators were reassigned to finishSpace Jam (1996). Meanwhile, in April 1996,Christopher Reeve was cast as King Arthur.[11] During the interim, several story changes were made that resulted in creative differences between the Kroyers and the studio management. In particular, Excalibur replaced the Holy Grail, which Warner Bros. Feature Animation presidentMax 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."[4] By the middle of 1996, the Kroyers were allegedly fired by Howard,[12] who later moved on to developing another project at Warner Bros. Feature Animation.[4]
Following the departure of the Kroyers, two supervising animators along with several employees in the studio's art department subsequently left the project.[12][13] The film's initial producer, Frank Gladstone, left the project in February 1997 and was replaced with Dalisa Cohen.[12] Effects supervisorMichel 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."[14]: 218 Eventually, Du Chau was promoted to be the film's director.[12] Meanwhile, Reeve was replaced byPierce Brosnan when he became unavailable to record new dialogue.[14]: 217 [4]
In an article inAnimation 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 fromDisney 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."[14]: 218 Reportedly, "cost overruns and production nightmares" led the studio to "reconsider their commitment to feature animation."[15] FilmmakerBrad Bird (who directedThe 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.[15]
The film was mainly animated at the main Warner Bros. Feature Animation facility located inGlendale, California andLondon,England.[11] 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 beinked-and-painted.[16] Additional studios that worked on the film includedYowza! Animation inToronto, Ontario, where they assisted inclean-up animation,[17] Heart of Texas Productions inAustin, andA. Film A/S inCopenhagen where, along with London, about a quarter of the film was animated overseas.[14]: 218 [18] The supervising animators wereAthanassios 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, andMike Nguyen for Ayden.[19]
To create the rock-likeogre and other computer-generated effects, the production team usedSilicon 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.[19][20]
| Quest for Camelot: Music from the Motion Picture | |
|---|---|
| Soundtrack album by Various Artists | |
| Released | May 5, 1998 |
| Genre | Various |
| Length | 45:07 |
| Label | Atlantic Records |
| Producer | Various Artists |
| Singles from Quest for Camelot: Music from the Motion Picture | |
| |
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |    [21] |
On January 31, 1996,David Foster andCarole Bayer Sager were attached to compose several songs for the film.[22] The album peaked at #117 on theBillboard 200, and won theGolden Globe Award for Best Original Song for "The Prayer". The song was also nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Original Song, but lost to "When You Believe" fromDreamWorks'The Prince of Egypt.[23]
On the soundtrack, "The Prayer" was performed separately byCeline Dion inEnglish, and byAndrea Bocelli inItalian. The now better-known Dion-Bocelli duet in both languages first appeared in October 1998 on Dion's Christmas albumThese Are Special Times; it was also released as a single in March 1999 and on Bocelli's albumSogno in April 1999.
"Looking Through Your Eyes" was the lead single for the soundtrack.Andrea Corr ofThe Corrs andBryan White performed the song as a duet in the film, whileLeAnn Rimes performed the song during the end credits as the pop version. The second single off the soundtrack, "I Stand Alone", performed by White in the film, andSteve Perry for the end credits. Other original songs composed for the film include "United We Stand", "On My Father's Wings", "Ruber", and "If I Didn't Have You".
| No. | Title | Performer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Looking Through Your Eyes" | LeAnn Rimes | 4:06 |
| 2. | "I Stand Alone" | Steve Perry | 3:43 |
| 3. | "The Prayer" | Celine Dion | 2:49 |
| 4. | "United We Stand" | Steve Perry | 3:20 |
| 5. | "On My Father's Wings" | Andrea Corr | 3:00 |
| 6. | "Looking Through Your Eyes" | Andrea Corr &Bryan White | 3:36 |
| 7. | "Ruber" | Gary Oldman | 3:56 |
| 8. | "I Stand All Alone" | Bryan White | 3:27 |
| 9. | "If I Didn't Have You" | Eric Idle &Don Rickles | 2:55 |
| 10. | "Dragon Attack/Forbidden Forest" (score) | 3:14 | |
| 11. | "The Battle" (score) | 2:49 | |
| 12. | "Looking Through Your Eyes" (Instrumental) | 3:57 | |
| 13. | "The Prayer" | Andrea Bocelli | 4:10 |
| Total length: | 45:07 | ||
The film was originally slated for November 14, 1997, but was pushed to May 15, 1998, to give the production team more time to finish the film.[24]
The film was accompanied with a marketing campaign with promotional licensees includingTyson Foods,Kraft Foods,PepsiCo viaFrito-Lay,Kodak,ConAgra Foods viaAct II Popcorn, andHasbro viaKenner Products. The fast food restaurant chainWendy's had toys based on the characters included in a kid's meal, while Kodak had print advertisements on over 200 million photo processing envelopes.[24][25][26] Warner Bros. also partnered withScholastic to produce children's books based on the film.[27]
Quest for Camelot was released onVHS andDVD byWarner Home Video in the United States and Canada on October 13, 1998. The VHS edition includes a teaser trailer for Warner Bros. andMorgan Creek Productions'The King and I (1999), 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 partnered withAct II Popcorn,Smucker's,American Express,Continental Airlines,Best Western Hotels,CoinStar andUNICEF, which advertised its trick-or-treat donation boxes before Halloween arrived. Other promotions with the purchase of every video included a free "Devon & Cornwall" pendant, a mail-in offer for a free 14-inch "Devon & Cornwall" stuffed toy, and a Warner Bros. 75th Anniversary savings booklet worth over $150 in special offers and valuable savings.[28]
OnRotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 43% based on 29 reviews, with an average rating of 5.2/10. 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."[29] OnMetacritic, the film has an average score of 50 based on 22 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[30] Audiences surveyed byCinemaScore gave the film a B+ on a grade scale from A to F.[31]
Owen Gleiberman, reviewing forEntertainment 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."[32] David Kronke of theLos 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."[33]
Critical of the story, animation, characters, and music,James Berardinelli ofReelViews wrote that the film was "dull, uninspired, and, worst of all, characterized by artwork that could charitably be called 'unimpressive.'"[34]Stephen Holden ofThe New York Times wrote, "Coming on the heels of 20th Century Fox's lush but sillyAnastasia (a much better film than this one),Quest for Camelot suggests that Disney still owns the artistic franchise on animated features."[35] Kevin J. Harty, an editor of a collection of essays titledCinema Arthuriana, says that the film is "slightly indebted to, rather than, as Warner publicity claims, actually based on" Chapman's novel.[36]
Peter Stack of theSan 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."[37]Joe Leydon ofVariety 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."[38]
Quest for Camelot grossed $6 million on its opening weekend, ranking third behindThe Horse Whisperer andDeep Impact.[39] The film ultimately grossed $22.5 million during its theatrical run in North America.[40] Cumulatively, the film grossed $38.1 million worldwide.[3] The studio lost about $40 million on the film.[7]
| Award | Category | Recipient | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Awards[41] | Best Original Song | "The Prayer" Music byCarole Bayer Sager andDavid Foster; Lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager, David Foster,Tony Renis andAlberto Testa | Nominated |
| Annie Awards[42] | Best Animated Feature | Dalisa Cohen | Nominated |
| Outstanding Individual Achievement for Effects Animation | Michel Gagné | Nominated | |
| Artios Awards[43] | Best Casting for Animated Voice-Over | Julie Hughes, Barry Moss and Jessica Gilburne | Nominated |
| Golden Globe Awards[44] | Best Original Song | "The Prayer" Music by Carole Bayer Sager and David Foster; Lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager, David Foster, Tony Renis and Alberto Testa | Won |
| Golden Reel Awards | Best Sound Editing – Animated Feature | Nominated | |
| Online Film & Television Association Awards[45] | Best Family Score | Patrick Doyle, David Foster and Carole Bayer Sager | Nominated |
The film is recognized byAmerican Film Institute in these lists:
Prior to the release of the film,Warner Bros. had plans to make a stage adaptation of the film that would tour around to differentrenaissance fairs throughout theUnited States, as well as a nightly fireworks show forSix Flags Great Adventure. Both shows were designed by SLG Design & Creative Talent and Steve Gilliam.[47]
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".[48]
TheQuest for Camelot Audio Action-Adventure was a follow alongaudiobook based on the film. Released April 7, 1998,[49] the interactive story features two new songs that were not included in the movie,Camelot andTo Be a Knight.[50] Initially announced in 1996, the audiobook was scheduled to be released October 1997,[51] but was delayed until April 1998. The story was narrated byVal Bettin.
The first video game was titledQuest for Camelot and is anaction-adventurevideo game developed byTitus Interactive and published byNintendo for theGame Boy Color in 1998, and later was added to theNintendo Switch Online service on September 5, 2023. ANintendo 64 version of the game was planned,[52] but was scrapped due to the film's performance at the box office.[53] The second video game was titledQuest for Camelot: Dragon Games is a computer game developed byKnowledge 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.
