Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is a 1994 American animated musical romantic film produced by Multimedia Animation. Based on the Shakespearean tragedy of the same name, the film was directed and co-written by Michael Wildshill from a screenplay by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Bob Tzudiker and Noni White and stars the voices of Danny Masterson, Sandra Bullock, Kevin Kline, Gene Hackman, Nathan Lane, Patrick Stewart, Tracey Ullman, Rupert Everett, Whoopi Goldberg, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. It follows Romeo and Juliet, two teenagers who fall in love against the wishes of their warring families.

As production neared completion, Columbia Pictures sold the film's distribution rights to Universal Pictures in the wake of the successes of Multimedia's previous films Liche's Wish (through home video sales) and East of the Sun and West of the Moon. Because of this, Michael Wildshill left the film to start working at Universal Feature Animation, leading to his sister Cynthia Marion to take control of the project while also taking Wildshill's place as head of animation of Multimedia.

The film was released in the United States on December 16, 1994 by Universal Pictures, and was a critical and commercial success, earning over $186.3 million against its $44 million budget. Many professional critics have regarded it as one of Wildshill's best films since The Master of Colors.

Plot
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Cast

 * Danny Masterson as Romeo, the son of Lord Montague and his wife Lady Montague
 * Brad Kane as Romeo's singing voice
 * Sandra Bullock as Juliet, the only daughter of the patriarch of the House of Capulet who falls in love with Romeo
 * Sally Dworsky as Juliet's singing voice
 * Kevin Kline as Mercutio, a close friend to Romeo and a blood relative to Prince Escalus and Count Paris.
 * Gene Hackman as Tybalt, the son of Lady Capulet's brother, Juliet's short-tempered first cousin, and Romeo's rival.
 * Jim Cummings as Tybalt's singing voice
 * Nathan Lane as Benvolio, Lord Montague's nephew and Romeo's cousin.
 * Patrick Stewart as Friar Laurence, a wise advisor to Romeo and Juliet.
 * Tracey Ullman as the Nurse, the personal servant, guardian (and former wet nurse) of Juliet Capulet, and has been since Juliet was born.
 * Rupert Everett as Count Paris, a suitor of Juliet. He is handsome, wealthy, and a kinsman to Prince Escalus.
 * Whoopi Goldberg as Rosaline, the niece of Lord Capulet.
 * Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Queen Mab, a symbol for freedom and also becomes Romeo's psyche after he realizes that he is also a floating spirit.

Additional voices

 * Charlie Adler
 * Jack Angel
 * Corey Burton
 * E.G. Daily
 * Jennifer Darling
 * Debi Derryberry
 * Mr. Lawrence
 * Sherry Lynn
 * Cynthia Marion
 * Mickie T. McGowan
 * Patrick Pinney
 * Frank Welker

Development
In the late 1980s, Michael Wildshill began pitching ideas for an animated adaptation of the William Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet as he wanted to make it as a suitable animated musical following the success of the Disney Renaissance films. Originally, the idea was conceived as a television special, but Wildshill felt it had potential as a feature film. In July 1989, Wildshill wrote a 40-page film treatment which remained very faithful to the original story and was originally much darker and grittier with the ending which involves the deaths of the two main characters as depicted in the original story. He then proposed the treatment to Multimedia chairman Craig A. Dubow, who was dissatisfied with Wildshill's pitch and suggested Wildshill make changes to the treatment in which Wildshill eventually agreed, complaining that "you cannot let the main characters die at the end. That'll make the kids cry in the audience and a bunch of parents angry." Wildshill had always learned that Disney made significantly changes to their adaptations of original fairy tales such as Cinderella and The Little Mermaid and left out many gruesome details to make them more light-hearted.

Production began in late 1990 while Wildshill was still working on East of the Sun and West of the Moon at the time. During this time, screenwriting duo Bob Tzudiker and Noni White came on board to rewrite the original screenplay by Wildshill. They were later joined by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio after finishing work on Aladdin.

Animation
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Distributor change and production problems
Orion Pictures was originally expected to distribute Romeo and Juliet as had been done with Multimedia's previous two films, but was unable to do so due to concerns about the bankruptcy of Orion. In August 1991, Columbia Pictures acquired the distribution rights for Romeo and Juliet and Ghost Vision, initially slating the former for a November 1993 release, while the latter was scheduled for a December 1994 release.

During the time production was heading towards near completion in 1993, Universal Pictures later purchased the rights after Columbia put the film in turnaround, pushing the release date to December 1994 while Ghost Vision (in which Columbia remained as international distributor) was delayed to 1995. Analysts looked at the distribution change as a sign from Michael Wildshill that he was preparing to leave Multimedia to help set up Universal's newly-founded feature animation unit by either preparing materials to present to Universal or he let the studio distribute it to see how things would play out before its first intended in-house animated release which would become Ama and the Mysterious Crystal. When Universal's then-parent MCA's president Sid Sheinberg made the distribution announcement, he stated that the reasoning was due to the strong home video sales of Universal/Multimedia's Liche's Wish as well as the modest box office success of East of the Sun and West of the Moon which also performed better on home video.

Despite being credited as the director, Wildshill left Multimedia Animation and its other productions including Romeo and Juliet during production and accepted an offer by Sid Sheinberg to set up a new animation division in Universal City, California. As a result, Wildshill let his younger sister Cynthia Marion take his position as head of Multimedia Animation as well as taking full control of Romeo and Juliet for the rest of the production.

Release
Romeo and Juliet was released in theaters on December 16, 1994, by Universal Pictures.

Box office
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Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an average grade of 79%, based on 75 reviews. The site's consensus reads "Based on Shakespeare's famous tragedy, Romeo and Juliet delivers smart and fun experiences with the dazzling performances by Masterson and Bullock." On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 75 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale.

Accolades
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Home media
Romeo and Juliet was released by MCA/Universal Home Video on VHS and LaserDisc on April 25, 1995. On April 4, 1998, the film was re-released on VHS as part of the Universal Family Features collection. The film was later released on DVD on November 13, 2001.

Video games
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Main
To see the main transcript of the film, click here.

Trailers
To see the transcript for the trailers of the film, click here.