Dusk and Dawn

This film is a winner of the Quixote Award for Best Film Of 2003!

Dusk and Dawn is a 2003 American computer-animated comedy fantasy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by DreamWorks Pictures. It was directed by Eric Darnell and Cody Cameron from a screenplay written by Jymn Magon, Roger S. H. Schulman and Ralph Zondag and a story by Phil Nibbelink. The film stars the voices of Josh Peck, Zooey Deschanel, Anthony Hopkins, Christine Baranski, and Dan Aykroyd. Set in a fantasy world where parts of a day are depicted as beings, the film follows two individuals—a boy named Dusk (Peck) and a girl named Dawn (Deschanel)—who encounter each other for the first time and discover their abilities to the world but must save Dawn's home from a dangerous threat.

Development began in 1992, when the film was originally conceived as a traditional animated musical epic produced by Amblimation. Following his directorial debut with An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991), Nibbelink recruited Gabriel Garza creator Geo G. to work on the development and design most of the film's characters, especially the titular duo who originated in drawings Geo created during his college years. During production of Amblimation's next films, Michael Wildshill and his new Universal Feature Animation team were brought in as co-producer to assist in the story development and make the film more comedic. Because of poor test screenings, creative differences with Nibbelink, the MCA/Multimedia merger, the closure of Amblimation, and production falling behind schedule, Universal put the project in turnaround, and DreamWorks acquired it in 1997. Although it was intended to remain its initial traditional animation look, the film eventually became a fully computer animated feature by Pacific Data Images. Pre-production began in 1999, with Darrell selected as director and Cameron joining him the following year, replacing Nibbelink as the original director as he left the project after disagreeing with the decision to turn the film into computer animation. Focus shifted from making an action-adventure drama film to a more comedy-oriented one, and several writers, such as Magon and Schulman, were brought on to bring out a wittier tone, while some of the original core team including Geo and Zondag were remained intact.

Dusk and Dawn was released on December 19, 2003 in the United States. It received mostly positive reviews from critics, who commended its animation, script, characterizations, and voice acting, while the character designs were mostly criticized. It grossed $351 million over its $100 million budget, making it the second highest-grossing animated film of 2003 and the tenth highest-grossing film of the year overall. The film was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 76th Academy Awards (which lost to Finding Nemo), later gaining a cult following through television syndication and its home video release. It has since been expanded into a franchise with a sequel titled Dusk and Dawn 2: The Belt of Venus released on May 15, 2009, three short films, a television special titled Dusk and Dawn's Holiday, two television series, and a spin-off prequel film titled Dusk Before Dawn released on July 31, 2015. Another sequel, titled Dusk and Dawn: A Zodiacal Night, was released on March 2, 2018.

Plot
In a world where parts of a day are depicted as beings, Twilight creates his darker stage Dusk in order to collect times and stages for Twilight so that he can grain his energy after sunset. Elsewhere, Sun creates Dawn, the first appearance of light in the sky before sunrise. Dusk is a social outcast from the others in Twilight's palace due to frequently messing things up by accident. Though he is unconditionally supported by Twilight, Dusk dreams for more in life than the palace's bleak existence collecting stages. In Sun's palace, Dawn is dissatisfied with her life there and is fascinated by the outside world. She ignores the warnings of Sun and her loyal friend Light, who serves as her adviser, that contact of Sun and Twilight's sides is forbidden.

One day, a battle ensues at Sun's palace where a couple of Twilight's tribe breaks in to imprison their rivals Sun and her people except Dawn who is separated from everyone else and crashes onto Twilight's palace, where she encounters Dusk. While hiding her from Twilight's tribe due to the fact that the people from Sun's palace are outlawed in Twilight's, Dusk gains Dawn's trust by keeping her safe in his house and feeding her some food. Realizing Dawn is not a threat, the two begin to bond and spend time with each other, as well as showing off their special abilities. However, Dusk later discovers that Dawn is desperate and worried about her home as she feels like she doesn't fit in Twilight's palace, making her an outcast just like Dusk. She convinces Dusk to make a deal to help her return, and the pair leave Dusk's home for Dawn's. Meanwhile, Sun instructs Light to find and rescue Dawn from Twilight's side upon learning of her predicament.

Dusk and Dawn stumble upon a tribe of humanoid creatures including the leader Keeper who reveal that they know the way to Dawn's home, leading them across a bridge to the palace. However, things go wrong as when the pair almost reached the end, the bridge snaps, causing them to fall into a river where they are thrown off a waterfall. Exhausted, Dusk decides to give up but Dawn realizes that she and Dusk are almost near her home. On the way, Light arrives and becomes thrilled when he eventually finds the pair, whom he helps them reach the palace.

The pair enter the entrance of Sun's palace where they find a book about the history of parts of a day, containing "the dusk till dawn" moral which acknowledges the relationship between the two. But learning of their appearances, Dawn realizes she is home and bids farewell to Dusk while Light takes her back. However, Twilight's army captures Dawn and Light, but Dawn interferes long enough for Light to escape and ends up being captured instead. Twilight's army takes Dawn to the main room where Sun and her tribe were imprisoned. There, she discovers Twilight, who reveals that he is planning to capture all the lights around the world, making it all dark and night forever.

Meanwhile, Light comes back to Dusk and tells him that Dawn has been captured. The two manage to rescue Dawn, Sun and their other people with the help of Keeper and his tribe and return to the palace where they defeat Twilight's army and free the imprisoned people including Dawn and Sun before Twilight confronts them. When Dusk refuses Twilight's orders to transform Sun's people into dark and night, citing Dawn's teachings, Twilight uses power to control Sun's people while making them transform into their night forms to attack Dusk for disobeying. However, the sun rises which causes the possessed people to turn back to normal. Dawn tells Twilight and his tribe that she and her people are harmless, making Twilight's army isolate him for tricking them. With Dusk encouraging him to have a change of heart, Twilight eventually apologizes to Sun's people for his misdeed; both sides make peace and become close allies rather than rivals. Dusk is praised for his heroism and lives happily ever after with Dawn, resuming their relationship.

Cast

 * See also: List of Dusk and Dawn characters


 * Josh Peck as Dusk, a teenage boy who is a representation of the darkest stage of Twilight.
 * Zooey Deschanel as Dawn, a teenage girl who is a representation of the first appearance of light in the sky before sunrise.
 * Anthony Hopkins as Twilight, the creator of Dusk.
 * Christine Baranski as Sun, the creator of Dawn.
 * Dan Aykroyd as Light, a midget who is a close friend of Sun and Dawn.
 * Eric Darnell as Keeper, Judge, Tick-Tock Guy
 * Christopher Knights as Elder Jo
 * Erika Thomas as Elder Ji
 * Keith David as Elder Ja
 * Cody Cameron as Tio
 * Conrad Vernon as Mark, Guard #1, Billy, Teacher Ted
 * Chris Miller as Sparkle, Guard #2
 * Anne Lockhart as Miss Night
 * David P. Smith and Aron Warner as Photogs
 * Justin Shenkarow as Teen
 * Nika Futterman as Shelly
 * Donald Fullilove as Harry
 * Guillaume Aretos as Grooming Critter

ADR Group

 * Newell Alexander
 * Tom Amundsen
 * Steve Bulen
 * Kate Carlin
 * Mitch Carter
 * Robert Clotworthy
 * David Cowgill
 * Holly Dorff
 * Moosie Drier
 * Chad Einbinder
 * Iake Eissinmann
 * Rylee Fansler
 * Donald Fullilove
 * Elisa Gabrielli
 * Nicholas Guest
 * Wendy Hoffmann
 * Sherry Hursey
 * Marabina Jaimes
 * Edie Mirman
 * Paul Pape
 * Devika Parikh
 * Peter Renaday
 * Philece Sampler
 * Justin Shenkarow
 * Marcelo Tubert

Origins and conception
Dusk and Dawn as a concept dates back to early 1991, when former Disney animator Phil Nibbelink conceived a story about a representation of dusk till dawn while still working on An American Tail: Fievel Goes West at Amblin Entertainment's UK-based animation division Amblimation. After creating the bible for a franchise of several films, television series, video games, books, merchandising, hotel chain, and theme parks, Nibbelink later participated in development during the early stages of the production and took the package unsolicited to Universal Pictures where he became the first of several screenwriters on the project.

Alongside writer Ralph Zondag (who had written and developed the film's original story treatments in conjunction with Nibbelink), Nibbelink formulated the idea for Dusk & Dawn, in which development on the project began following the finished production on An American Tail: Fievel Goes West. Upon pitching the project to Steven Spielberg, Nibbelink recalled Spielberg saying "it fits perfect for an animated feature," and Nibbelink was attached to direct the project, which was set to have an epic-oriented comedy-drama tone with Zondag writing the first draft for the script. In November 1991, The Morning Call reported that Spielberg was working on "a from-dusk-to-dawn original story" for Amblimation. Dusk & Dawn was to have been a tale of a clumsy, outlawed dusk (voiced by Dan Aykroyd) who encounters a beautiful dawn (voiced by Meg Ryan) who acts and looks just like him; the two begin to fall in love against the wishes of their warring families, much as in William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. However, the villainous sun goddess has plans to destroy the dusk people so that her daughter and other dawn people can finally have peace. Together, the dawn and the dusk set out to stop the sun goddess from hurting the dusk people.

In early 1992, Spielberg and producer Steve Hickner contacted and offered Geo G., in the wake of his success with the animated series Gabriel Garza, to work on the story development and the character designs (alongside Nico Marlet) and Geo happened to be a fan of Spielberg since he grew up watching E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. He was also interested in producing the project through his Double G Productions company and expressing hope the company would help launch a multimedia franchise if the film were successful. For the titular characters, Geo selected two characters who originally appeared in some drawings he had been creating since his college years; he first intended to adapt those drawings into a television series titled The Zone, but also considered other options such as a feature film, a children's book, a comic strip, video games, and even characters for Gabriel Garza before the idea was retooled into BJ and Wally.

During production of We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, Balto, The Imps of Nature and the now-cancelled Cats at Amblimation, studio executives felt that the project was growing too ambitious and serious for audiences following test screenings, and needed more comedy. In the summer of 1993, Universal Feature Animation heads Michael Wildshill (who was coincidentally directing his own animated adaptation of Romeo and Juliet via Multimedia Animation) and John Cohen approached Nibbelink with the proposition of having the film be produced in-house at Universal (although Amblimation was still involved in the project), which Nibbelink realized was "basically a no-brainer," according to him. Wildshill also enlisted fellow animator William Jennings to be co-director on Dusk & Dawn.

In October 1994, Universal Feature Animation announced the project was being directed by Nibbelink and Jennings with Cohen and Melissa Hester serving as producers while Wildshill would executive produce. By August 1995, it had reportedly been retitled as Dusk and Dawn as a collaboration with Universal Feature Animation, Amblin Entertainment and Double G Productions in which Spielberg and Geo would co-executive produce with Wildshill. In addition, Aykroyd, Ryan and Michelle Pfeiffer had been confirmed to voice the dusk Louie, the dawn Mina and the villainess Ligera, while Steve Martin was in talks for the role of the sun midget Al. George Hearn was also cast as Gloom, an elderly dusk who had raised his dusk people and kept them in refugee.

Following Multimedia's merger with Universal's then-parent company MCA in 1996, it became apparent that Dusk and Dawn was not far along enough in production to be released in the summer of 1999 as planned. At this time, many of Amblimation's animators and artists went on to join DreamWorks Animation, co-founded by Spielberg, leaving Universal to have full control on the film's production. Cohen approached Nibbelink, and informed him of the need to finish the film on time for its summer 1999 release as crucial promotional deals with Burger King and other companies were already established and depended upon meeting that release date. Shortly after Amblimation's closure in 1997, Wildshill, Cohen and Jennings passed on the project due to "creative difficulties", thus putting it in a turnaround while Paint World assumed the summer 1999 release date originally scheduled for Dusk.

Move to DreamWorks and changes
After a failed attempt to revive the project at other studios such as 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros., Nibbelink eventually brought Dusk and Dawn to DreamWorks in 1997 after having been approached by studio co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, who knew him during his time at Disney and became interested in picking up the project that was originally set up at Universal. Development began under the title The Story of Dusk and Dawn, which was planned to be traditionally animated at DreamWorks' Glendale animation studio. Nibbelink, who was still directing the project, was also able to convince Zondag and Geo to return to the project.

Around the same time, Pacific Data Images (PDI) in Palo Alto, California (later Redwood City) was bought out by DreamWorks during the production of their first all-CG animated feature Antz. In light of this, DreamWorks and PDI executives requested the film to be computer-animated instead of the originally intended hand-drawn animation due to complex elements in the script regarding strong visuals following test screenings, but Nibbelink decided to leave the project, as he disagreed with the executives on their decision to turn the film into computer animation, as Nibbelink's intention was of making a true traditional animated feature. Antz co-director Eric Darnell replaced Nibbelink, and producer Aron Warner joined the production while Zondag and Geo were remained intact. DreamWorks also opted for the movie to take a more comedy-oriented direction (albeit while still maintaining some dramatic elements), and brought writer Roger S. H. Schulman to help emphasize a funnier tone. By October 1999, the Los Angeles Times reported that the film, now retitled back to just Dusk and Dawn, was in its preliminary stages with Darnell directing. Darnell was originally directing the film alone, but in 2000, Cody Cameron, an additional storyboard artist on Chicken Run, had joined him as co-director.

Story work on the revised film started when they knew what to retain from the original version, namely Dan Aykroyd as Louie and Meg Ryan as Mina, with the remaining elements would be written around those characters. David Bowers, who was a storyboard artist during Dusk and Dawn ' s tenure at Amblimation and Universal before joining DreamWorks, came up with the idea of making Louie and Mina teenagers following Bowers' discovery of Geo's original drawings of the characters who actually looked younger as opposed to the adults that they were in the original version, as to be the opposite of Ligera. Following up on the new idea, former MGM Animation writer Jymn Magon came on board as co-writer on the project, where he suggested a road comedy adventure take on the project. Meanwhile, the characters' names were changed to names after parts of a day (mainly Louie and Mina being renamed as Dusk and Dawn) as Katzenberg and Warner wanted the film to take place in a true fantasy universe where parts of a day are people. The plot elements, such as the romance between Dusk and Dawn (Louie and Mina), dusk-destroying villain scheme and similarities to Romeo and Juliet were dropped. The character of Gloom was also dropped, though he was reworked into Twilight, the creator of Dusk.

In late 1999, cast members Meg Ryan, Steve Martin and George Hearn were dropped from the film while Dan Aykroyd and Michelle Pfeiffer remained in the cast, though the latter was then given to Christine Baranski after having tried for the voice role of Eris in DreamWorks' other animated film Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas which was also replaced by Pfeiffer. Michael J. Fox initially auditioned for the lead role of Dusk, but later turned it down, stating that he did not like the way the character looked. As a result, Fox departed from Dusk and Dawn in 2000 and was replaced by Josh Peck, who was also considered before Fox. For the role of Dawn, Piper Perabo, Hilary Duff and Amanda Bynes were considered but Zooey Deschanel was ultimately cast after the producers approached her during the filming of DreamWorks' live-action film Almost Famous. Unlike contemporary animated films where most of the cast members record their voices separately, Peck and Deschanel recorded their parts in the studio together, although they both did a recording session separately at least two times.

In April 2001, Dusk and Dawn ' s new story was announced by DreamWorks and PDI, centering on an unlikely "dusk till dawn" relationship of two teenagers—voiced by Peck and Deschanel—who embark on a journey together to stop the war of their families of days. Anthony Hopkins was also announced in the film's voice cast. Despite the phrasing of the title, the film was not related to Robert Rodriguez's 1996 action horror film From Dusk till Dawn (although both stories involve a family being taken hostage). Katzenberg worried that the new story was too close in tone to Shrek, which became a huge success at the American box office. Darnell and Cameron assured him that Dusk and Dawn would have a much smaller cast, making it easier to attract audiences.

Animation and design
During production on Universal/Amblin's initial hand-drawn version of Dusk and Dawn, Ralph Zondag's brother Dick was the initial supervising animator of Dusk, then known as Louie. William Salazar was originally slated as the supervising animator for Mina, later Dawn. Jeffrey James Varab was to be the supervising animator of the villainess Ligera, who was rewritten as Sun. In early 1995, Todd Wilderman came on board to animate the sun midget Al, now Light. When Universal put the film in a turnaround, Wilderman transferred to work on Mistress Masham's Repose being developed concurrently at Universal while Dick Zondag left to work on Disney's Dinosaur.

After DreamWorks took over production of Dusk and Dawn when it was still being traditionally animated in-house at the Glendale studio, animator James Baxter inherited the character of Louie while Salazar stayed as the supervising animator of Mina, as many of Amblimation's artists and animators who worked on Dusk and Dawn were remained intact when they joined DreamWorks following Amblimation's closure. Kristof Serrand, who previously worked on the original Amblimation version of Dusk, was later asked to serve as the supervising animator of Ligera, as Varab left to work on other projects. Following the decision to turn Dusk and Dawn into a CGI animated feature at Pacific Data Images (PDI) during a massive change on the film's story, Salazar and Serrand left the project as they only stayed in the Glendale animation studio to work on The Road to El Dorado being developed concurrently, although Baxter stayed in Dusk and Dawn as supervising animator. According to producer Aron Warner, the discussion to move the project to CGI sounded better and more fitting than using traditional animation for the film's themes and elements.

Actual production began at PDI in 2000 while production of Shrek was almost finished at the time. Like its previous films Antz and Shrek, PDI used its own proprietary software (like its own Fluid Animation System) for its animated movies including Dusk and Dawn. The studio also utilized Maya for the animation process, as well as for the hair of the titular protagonists. The animators faced great challenges attempting to create more realistic human hair and fur systems for the characters, even with the help of Maya's hair system that was also used to animate Princess Fiona's hair in Shrek, especially when it came to designing Dawn, the hardest character to animate in the film with over 1,000 controls, a very long ponytail and a flexible torso, although supervising animator Raman Hui remarked the effect came across better than animating the realistic humans from Shrek, who suffered from the "uncanny valley".

Many of the character designs (mainly the titular duo's) were supplied by Geo G., who remained involved in the project since the early development stages of Dusk and Dawn back when it was being developed at Universal and Amblimation. Other character designers for the film include Raman Hui, Carlos Grangel, Nico Marlet, Craig Kellman, Carey Yost, Andy Bialk and Chris Battle; the latter four previously worked with Geo on his work Gabriel Garza, Niz Chicoloco and Zina Supermoon as well as Kit Mineko where Geo served as executive producer under his Glass Ball Productions company. Additionally, Geo served as an uncredited co-producer of the film.

Music
The film's score was composed by Hans Zimmer and John Powell, who all previously scored DreamWorks' The Road to El Dorado (2000). Originally, Harry Gregson-Williams was set to co-compose the score with Powell, as had been done with DreamWorks' previous four films Antz, Kit Mineko, Chicken Run and Shrek, but Gregson-Williams left out the project due to scheduling conflicts, with Hans Zimmer replacing him. However, Gregson-Williams was only credited under "Special Thanks" in the film's end credits.

A soundtrack for the film was released by DreamWorks Records on December 16, 2003.

Theatrical
Dusk and Dawn was originally slated for release on November 7, 2003 before being pushed back to December 19 in order to avoid competition with Disney's Brother Bear and New Line Cinema's Elf.

Marketing
The first teaser trailer was released on December 20, 2002, and was attached to The Wild Thornberrys Movie. The film's second trailer was released on May 30, 2003, and was attached to Finding Nemo.

Upon its release, Burger King had a promotional tie-in with five toys including Dusk, Dawn, Twilight, Sun and Light with a paid Kids' Meal order. Gingo also promoted the film with several promotional spots, alongside the sweepstakes for the film's merchandise, which appeared on Gingo.com but later expired on December 25, 2003. Other merchandise promoted for the film includes plush items, toys, activity sets, keepsakes and apparel.

Home media
Dusk and Dawn was released by DreamWorks Home Entertainment on VHS and DVD on April 13, 2004. It was also released on Game Boy Advance Video in October 2005. The home media release accompanied with a DVD exclusive animated short film Dawn's Nature. The DVD release also contains an audio commentary on the film, featurettes, games, and technical goofs among other features. The film was later released on Blu-ray on April 7, 2009, by Paramount Home Entertainment. Universal Pictures Home Entertainment subsequently re-released the film on Blu-ray on June 4, 2019.

Box office
Dusk and Dawn grossed $130.1 million in the United States and Canada and $221.1 million with a worldwide total of $351.2 million. On the film's opening day, the film grossed $9.8 million on its opening day and ended up grossing $30.1 million in its opening weekend.

Critical reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 79% based on 143 reviews, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The critical consensus reads: "While far from complex, Dusk and Dawn withholds all the power needed to deliver 96 minutes of sweetly immersive family-friendly light." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 75 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.

Video games
A video game based on the film was released in North America on December 9, 2003 for PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, N-Gage, PC and mobile phones. It was published by Agetec and developed by Blitz Games for the console versions, and was ported by KnowWonder for PC and by Digital Eclipse for GBA and N-Gage. Skyworks Interactive also developed the mobile version. Upon release, the game received a mixed to positive reception.

Another video game based on the film, Dusk and Dawn: The Lightness Journey‎, was released on April 5, 2004 for Game Boy Advance, developed by Vicarious Visions and published by Activision. It takes place after the events of the film.

Sequels and spin-offs
A sequel, titled Dusk and Dawn 2: The Belt of Venus, was released on May 15, 2009. Directed by Tim Johnson, Aron Warner returned as producer, with William Davies and Michael J. Wilson as writers. Josh Peck, Zooey Deschanel, Anthony Hopkins, Christine Baranski, and Dan Aykroyd returned to voice their roles, with James Woods, Isla Fisher, Nicole Kidman, Jeff Garlin, and Bill Nighy joining the cast. In this film, Dusk and Dawn's new life turns upside down when an advanced Venus threatens their home, and they attempt to get rid of Venus but are forced to make peace with him.

A second sequel, titled Dusk and Dawn: A Zodiacal Night, was released on March 2, 2018. This film was directed by Simon J. Smith and co-directed by Alessandro Carloni and written by Eyal Podell and Jonathon E. Stewart. Many of the voice cast from the first two films returned for the third film, joined by Jake Johnson, Bobby Cannavale, Kate McKinnon, Matt Frewer, and James Corden. In this film, Dusk and Dawn accidentally switch colors of their appearances when several optical phenomena including the zodiacal light occur in their homes; the pair must work together to stop the zodiacal light so they can return to their normal forms before it is too late.

A spin-off prequel film titled Dusk Before Dawn was released on July 31, 2015, and centers around the life of Dusk before he had met Dawn. It was directed by Tom McGrath and written by Walt Dohrn and Darren Lemke. The voice cast has Josh Peck and Anthony Hopkins reprising their roles from both films, along with Sophia Bush, Morgan Freeman, Jeff Bridges and Gwyneth Paltrow joining the cast and Zooey Deschanel providing the film's narration as Dawn.

Beside the films, the Dusk and Dawn franchise also includes three short films titled Dawn's Nature, Before Dusk and Dawn of the Hallow, and a television special titled Dusk and Dawn's Holiday. A television series based on the films also started airing on Nickelodeon on June 5, 2010 and ended on May 30, 2015. Another television series starring Dawn and set before the events of the first film, titled Dawn of Dawn, debuted on July 21, 2017, on Netflix, when the first five 22-minute episodes were released.

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Trailer transcripts
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