LiquidShaDow Posted January 28, 2003 Posted January 28, 2003 By Susan Wloszczyna, USA TODAY This gang doesn't just sleep with the fishes; they are the fishes. Among the star voices that have already signed on for Sharkslayer are Robert De Niro, Renee Zellweger and Will Smith. Meet the deep-sea cast of Sharkslayer, the computer-animated DreamWorks comedy that promises to make satirical sushi out of Mob movies — just as the studio's Oscar-winning 2001 smash Shrek shredded fairy-tale cliché. Right now, the animation industry is looking for any kind of fresh bait to grab audiences after Disney's traditionally drawn Treasure Planet shipwrecked at the box office, grossing less than $40 million. Like Shrek, which grossed $267.6 million, Sharkslayer has the distinct digital look that moviegoers favor. "Imagine an underwater cityscape that is Chicago meets Las Vegas meets Miami," says animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg of the November 2004 release. Classic references include "everything from The Untouchables to Some Like It Hot to all three Godfather films." Just added: Robert De Niro as Don Lino, a kingpin shark looking to expand his turf, after The Sopranos' James Gandolfini had to drop out. De Niro joins Will Smith, who plays Oscar, a hustler who dreams of moving up on the food chain from his lowly job at a whale wash. When one of the don's sons (Michael Imperioli of The Sopranos) is accidentally rubbed out by a dropped anchor, Oscar takes credit for the hit and becomes an unlikely hero. Like tuna (or, rather, 'toon-a) on rye, Oscar is caught between two female fish, Angelina Jolie's fin fatale Lola and Renee Zellweger's heavenly angelfish Angie. Director Martin Scorsese also takes the vocal plunge as a territorial Moe Greene-type puffer fish that sports his trademark bushy brows and rapid-fire delivery. Says Katzenberg: "He talks so fast. For animation, that is just gold. He's a total ham." DreamWorks' next blend of hand-drawn and digital techniques, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (July 2), may feel uncomfortably similar to the pirate-populated Planet, though Katzenberg says, "Our film is galaxies away from Treasure Planet." Katzenberg isn't throwing in the pencil on traditional animation yet, even if his next five animated films after Sinbad are either computerized (including Shrek 2 in June 2004) or stop-motion (Aardman's much-awaited Wallace & Gromit feature). "It's disingenuous to blame the technique for any failure. It's bad stories not told well. It's like saying a novelist had a bad book because it was typed on a laptop instead of written longhand." As for Sharkslayer following Disney and partner Pixar's own 3-D fish tale, Finding Nemo (May 30), Katzenberg says any similarities are mere coincidence, much like his Antz and Disney-Pixar's A Bug's Life in 1998. "We've been open with the Pixar people so we don't step on each other's toes." http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2003-01-26-sharkslayer_x.htm
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