The Road to El Dorado facts for kids

Quick facts for kids The Road to El Dorado
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Bibo Bergeron Don Paul
Produced by	Bonne Radford Brook Breton
Screenplay by	Ted Elliott Terry Rossio
Story by	Philip LaZebnik
Narrated by	Elton John
Starring	Kevin Kline Kenneth Branagh Rosie Perez Armand Assante Edward James Olmos Jim Cummings
Music by	Hans Zimmer John Powell
Editing by	Vicki Hiatt
Studio	DreamWorks Animation
Distributed by	DreamWorks Pictures
Release date(s)	March 31, 2000 (2000-03-31)
Running time	89 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$95 million
Money made	$76.4 million

The Road to El Dorado is a 2000 American animated adventure-musical film produced by DreamWorks Animation and released by DreamWorks Pictures. It was directed by Bibo Bergeron and Don Paul (in their feature directorial debuts) and additional sequences directed by Will Finn and David Silverman. The film stars Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Rosie Perez, Jim Cummings, Armand Assante, and Edward James Olmos.

The soundtrack features songs by Elton John and Tim Rice, as well as composers Hans Zimmer and John Powell. John is also credited periodically narrating the story in song throughout the film. The film follows two con artists who, after winning the map to El Dorado, escape from Spain. After washing ashore in the New World, they use the map to lead them to the city of El Dorado, where its inhabitants mistake them for gods.

The Road to El Dorado was released on March 31, 2000, to mixed reviews and was a box office bomb, grossing $76 million worldwide on a production budget of about $95 million. Despite the reception, re-evaluation in later years has given The Road to El Dorado new legions of fans and has established its own reputation as a cult film.

Plot

In 1519 Spain, con-artists Miguel and Tulio win a map to the legendary City of Gold, El Dorado, in a rigged dice gamble (though they ironically win the map fairly). After their con is exposed, the two evade the guards and hide inside barrels, which are then loaded into one of the ships to be led by conquistador Hernán Cortés for the New World. During the voyage, they are caught as stowaways and imprisoned, but break free and take a rowboat with the help of Cortés' horse, Altivo.

Their boat reaches land, where Miguel begins to recognize landmarks from the map, leading them to a totem marker near a waterfall that Tulio believes is a dead end. As they prepare to leave, they encounter a native woman, Chel, being chased by guards. When the guards see Tulio and Miguel riding Altivo as depicted on the totem, they escort them and Chel to a secret entrance behind the falls, into El Dorado. They are brought to the city's elders, kindhearted Chief Tannabok and wicked high priest Tzekel-Kan. The pair are mistaken for gods and are given luxurious quarters, along with the charge of Chel. She discovers that the two are conning the people, but promises to remain quiet if they take her with them when they leave the city. The two are showered with gifts of gold from Tannabok, but disapprove of Tzekel-Kan attempting to sacrifice a civilian at the gods' ritual.

Tulio and Miguel instruct Tannabok to build them a boat so that they can leave the city with all the gifts they have been given, under the ruse that they are needed back in the 'other world.' During the three days the construction will take, Miguel explores the city, and Chel gets romantically close to Tulio. Miguel comes to appreciate the peaceful life embraced by the citizens; by then, he reconsiders leaving, especially after overhearing Tulio telling Chel that he'd like her to come with them to Spain, before adding he'd like her to come with specifically him and to forget Miguel – straining the relationship between the two.

When Tzekel-Kan sees Miguel playing a ball game with children, he insists the "gods" demonstrate their powers against the city's best players in the same game. Tulio and Miguel are outmatched, but Chel replaces the ball with an armadillo, allowing them to win. Miguel spares the ritual of sacrificing the losing team and chastises Tzekel-Kan, much to the crowd's approval. Tzekel-Kan notices Miguel received a small cut in the game and realizes the pair are not gods since gods do not bleed, hence the reason for the sacrifices. Afterward, Miguel and Tulio enjoy a party being thrown for them, but sooner or later begin to argue about Tulio and Chel's conversation and Miguel's desire to stay. However, before they can continue, Tzekel-Kan conjures a giant stone jaguar to chase them throughout the city. Tulio and Miguel manage to outwit the jaguar, causing it and Tzekel-Kan to fall into a giant whirlpool, thought by the natives to be the entrance to Xibalba, the spirit world. Tzekel-Kan then surfaces in the jungle, where he encounters Cortés and his men. Believing Cortés to be the real god, Tzekel-Kan offers to lead them to El Dorado.

With the boat completed, Miguel decides to stay in the city. As Tulio and Chel board the boat, they see smoke on the horizon and realize Cortés is close. Knowing what will happen if Cortés discovers the city, Tulio suggests using the boat to ram the rock pillars under the waterfall and block the main entrance to the city. The plan succeeds with the citizens pulling over a statue in the boat's wake to give it enough speed. As the statue starts to fall too quickly, Tulio has difficulty in preparing the boat's sail. Giving up on staying in the city, Miguel and Altivo jump onto the boat to unfurl the sails, assuring the boat clears the statue in time. The group successfully crashes against the pillars, causing a cave-in, but losing all their gifts in the process. They hide near the totem just as Cortés' men and Tzekel-Kan arrive. When they find the entrance blocked, Cortés brands Tzekel-Kan as a liar and takes him prisoner as they leave. Tulio and Miguel, though disappointed they lost the gold (unaware that Altivo still wears the golden horseshoes with which he was outfitted in El Dorado), head in a different direction for a new adventure with Chel.

Voice cast

• Kenneth Branagh as Miguel, one of the con artists who pretend to be gods so they can get gold. He is more relaxed and easygoing than his con-partner Tulio.
• Kevin Kline as Tulio, one of the con artists who pretend to be gods so they can get gold. He is the strategic planner, often becoming anxious and overthinking things.
• Rosie Perez as Chel, a beautiful native woman from El Dorado who discovers Tulio and Miguel's con and decides to play along to get out from El Dorado.
• Armand Assante as Tzekel-Kan, the fanatically vicious high priest who has a religious fixation for human sacrifices. He initially believed Tulio and Miguel are gods until he discovered the truth.
• Edward James Olmos as Chief Tannabok, the skeptical, yet kind chief of El Dorado who realizes that Tulio and Miguel are gods, but allows them to stay out of kindness and hospitality, and because of the good Miguel and Tulio show to his people.
• Jim Cummings as Hernán Cortés, the merciless and ambitious conquistador leader of the expedition to find the empires of the New World.
  • Cummings also voices the cook on Cortés's ship, a warrior who gets stepped on by Tzekel-Kan's stone jaguar, and the native who warns Chief Tannabok about Cortés.
• Frank Welker as Altivo, Cortés' horse who befriends Tulio and Miguel.
  • Welker also voices the Bull that chases Miguel and Tulio at the beginning of the movie.
• Tobin Bell as Zaragoza, a sailor on the voyage to the New World of El Dorado and the original owner of the map, which he loses to Tulio and Miguel after a game of dice.
• Elton John as The Singing Narrator.
• Anne Lockhart as Girl in Barcelona
• Bob Bergen as Jaguar

Music

Marylata Jacob, who started DreamWorks' music department in 1995, became the film's music supervisor before the script was completed. Consulting with Katzenberg, Jacob decided the musical approach to the film would be world music. In late 1996, Tim Rice and Elton John were asked to compose seven songs, which they immediately worked on. Their musical process began with Rice first writing the song lyrics, and giving them to John to compose the music. John then recorded a demo, which was given to the animators who storyboarded to the demo, as the tempo and vocals would remain intact. Eventually, the filmmakers decided not to follow the traditional musical approach by having the characters sing. Co-producer Bonne Radford explained, "We were trying to break free of that pattern that had been kind of adhered to in animation and really put a song where we thought it would be great...and get us through some story points." On February 20, 1999, before the release of Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida, it was announced that ten songs had been composed for El Dorado, and that the release date had been pushed to March 2000.

Soundtrack

The Road to El Dorado is an album released by singer Elton John to accompany the DreamWorks animated motion picture The Road to El Dorado. The songs were composed mainly by John with lyricist Tim Rice, with score contributions by Hans Zimmer and John Powell. John, Rice, and Zimmer had previously collaborated on the soundtrack to Disney's The Lion King, another animated film. Zimmer had also previously composed the music score to The Prince of Egypt.

In some instances (such as "The Trail We Blaze"), the songs have been altered musically and vocally from the way they appeared in the film. A "Cast & Crew Special Edition" recording of the soundtrack exists, but was never released to the public. It includes the theatrical versions of the songs, including "It's Tough to be a God" recorded by Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh, and several of the score tracks by Hans Zimmer.

The Backstreet Boys provided uncredited backing vocals on "Friends Never Say Goodbye", the group is "thanked" by John following the credits in the CD booklet. The Eagles members Don Henley and Timothy B. Schmit are credited as background vocalists on the song "Without Question".

Track listing

Internet popularity

20 years after the film's release, The Road to El Dorado had an unexpected rise in popularity as an Internet meme.

See also

In Spanish: The Road to El Dorado para niños