Founded in 1994, DreamWorks Animation boasts an eclectic filmography, ranging from the bent fairy tales that are the Shrek movies to Aardman's whimsical stop-motion adventure Chicken Run. The studio also enjoyed early success with the traditionally animated Biblical epic The Prince of Egypt, which was the highest-grossing non-Disney animated film\u00a0at the time of its release. However, while its next two traditionally animated movies -- The Road to El Dorado and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron -- were both commercial misfires, it was the failure of 2003's Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas that sunk production on those types of animated projects at the company.
\nLoosely inspired by the Sinbad character from One Thousand and One Nights, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas re-imagines the eponymous sailor as a Sicilian swashbuckler in the vein of the romantic daredevils played by Hollywood icons Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn. When the Goddess of Discord, Eris, frames Sinbad for stealing the Book of Peace from Syracuse, his childhood friend, Prince Proteus, takes his spot on the executioner's block in the hopes of giving Sinbad and Proteus' fianc\u00e9e, the Thracian ambassador Princess Marina, enough time to recover the coveted artifact and save his life.
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
Upon premiering in theaters in July 2003, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas received mediocre reviews and went on to flop at the global box office, grossing $80.8 million against a $60 million production budget. According to a 2005 report from the Los Angeles Times, DreamWorks suffered a $125 million loss on the film, which was nearly enough to bankrupt the company when combined with its other financial woes at that time. Commenting shortly after Sinbad's opening, DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg didn't mince when it came to suggesting the movie failed because it wasn't fully 3D animated, stating, \"I think the idea of a traditional story being told using traditional animation is likely a thing of the past.\"
\nThe movie was also criticized for removing the Middle-Eastern elements of the Sinbad story and replacing them with references to Greek mythology, as well as making the characters non-Arabic. When interviewed by The Guardian in 2003, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas producer Mireille Soria claimed this was because the film's story evolved during production and wound up drawing more from the Greek parable of Damon and Pythius than the Sinbad legend. Academic Jack Shaheen, however, argued it was more likely DreamWorks wanted to \"play it safe\" and avoid putting out a movie featuring Arabic characters, heroic or evil, just a couple of years after the September 11th terrorist attacks.
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
All things considered, though, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas is better than its reputation suggests. Smoothly mixing high-octane thrills\u00a0with risque humor, the film moves swiftly from one exhilarating action sequence to another, pitting Sinbad and his crew against all manner of deadly mythical creatures on their odyssey. At the same time, the movie's 2D animation has aged far more gracefully than its 3D animation, and it lacks the memorable characters found in more favorably remembered swashbucklers. Brad Pitt and Catherine Zeta-Jones don't bring a lot of flavor to their voice acting as Sinbad and Marina either, although Michelle Pfeiffer is a hoot as the scheming, cynical Eris.
\nWere it produced today with some additional character development and the Middle-Eastern aspects of the Sinbad legend restored, as well as an appropriate cast and crew in terms of their ethnicity, it's not hard to imagine Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas faring better with critics and general audiences. Sadly, though, that didn't happen, and the movie's only real claim to fame is being the bomb that served\u00a0as the final nail in the coffin for DreamWorks' brief era of traditional animation.
\nSinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas is available to stream on multiple platforms, including Amazon, Hulu, and YouTube.
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