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Natalia's Story is a 1996 animated musical adventure family comedy-drama film produced by Paramount Feature Animation and Amblin Entertainment through its Amblimation studio. It is the 38th feature film produced by the studio. It is directed by Simon Wells and Sonia Landry and screenplay by Flint Dille, Rachel Koretsky and Steven Whitesone. The film stars the voices of Cathy Cavadini, Hayden Panettiere, Richard Kind, Dom DeLuise, Shani Wallis, Jennifer Hale, and Tim Curry. It tells the story of a teenage girl Natalia who leaves her home in order to become a star of her dreams, but she ends up in several misadventures by having many friends and going places she never been before.
Natalia's Story was the first feature produced primarily at the Paramount animation studio in London and Paramount and Amblimation's last collaborative project, as well as was marked one of the last three animated features that George Burke and Lana Ponce ever supervised before their retirement in 1994 during production, as development began in 1993.
Natalia's Story was released on November 27, 1996, by Paramount Pictures. On its theatrical release, it competed directly with Disney's 101 Dalmatians, released on the same day. It received mixed-to-positive reviews and was a box office success, making it Paramount Animation's highest-grossing animated film at the time. It later spawned an expanded franchise, with three direct-to-video follow-ups, a television series, video games, merchandise, and other media.
Plot[]
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Cast[]
- TBD as Natalia, a kind and inspiring 17-year-old girl who always want to be a singer.
- Cathy Cavadini as Young Natalia
- Jane Seymour as Adult Natalia
- TBD as Averie, a optimistic, cheerful and talented dancer who followed Natalia on her journey to become a singer. She also had dreams of opening her own dance studio someday.
- TBD as Frieda, a kind-hearted artist with a unique perspective on life. She also followed Natalia on her journey as well. Her creativity and ability to see beauty in everything taught Natalia to appreciate the little things and find joy in unexpected places.
- TBD as Devin, a charismatic musician who has a heart of gold, and later joined Natalia's group.
- TBD as Waylon, a young boy who is Natalia's love interest. He also dreams of being a talented actor much as big as Natalia's.
- TBD and TBD as Ray and Case, a two mischievous brothers who enjoyed getting into trouble. They also joined Natalia's journey.
- TBD as Amina, a glamorous singer who is Natalia's idol.
- Jennifer Hale as Danna, Natalia's adoptive mother.
- Tim Curry as Mr. Karter, a greedy and cold-hearted agent who secretly want Natalia to be one of his stars.
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Additional voices[]
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Production[]
Development[]
Based on a concept by Amblin Entertainment founder Steven Spielberg, Natalia's Story originally began production at Universal Pictures under the title Star Dream while Spielberg was still working on An American Tail and The Land Before Time with Don Bluth. However, the project was cancelled due to creative differences but was later revived and announced in December 1991 by Paramount Pictures, under the new title Natalia's Story. Simon Wells and Sonia Landry are set to direct the film. In December 1991, Paramount and Amblimation approved of the film's script and pre-production for the film, under the title Natalia's Story.
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While the film was in production, Paramount Communications Inc. was sold to Viacom on July 7, 1994, following the purchase of 50.1% of Paramount's shares for $9.75 billion, and as a result, William Mathews and River Becker not only became the heads of Games Animation, Paramount Feature Animation and Paramount Television Animation, but also took primary responsibility for other animation operations. When they saw an early screening for the movie, Mathews told the film's directors Simon Wells and Sonia Landry that he did not find the villain threatening enough, and suggested that they make some changes. Four months later, almost 60% of the film had been scrapped and redone. The villain had improved, and the ending was changed.
Writing[]
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Casting[]
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Animation and desgin[]
When some crew of Paramount Feature Animation saw the test screening of An American Tail: Fievel Goes West in 1990, before it came out, some of the crew liked the film and its story, however, when they saw the redesigned of Tanya Mousekewitz, whom Paramount found as the "only decent character" in the film due to her characteristics; George Burke and Lana Ponce described the character as "a prefect design for a main character". The film's characters designers Sonia Landry and Uli Meyer drew a design artworks of the human version of Tanya Mousekewitz, as Nancy Farwell and Spielberg first look at the design.
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After the voice cast recorded their lines for the characters, animation and filming began in November 1993. The film was animated locally by the main Paramount Feature Animation facility located in both Los Angeles and London, and Amblimation facility in both Universal City and London, along with Wang Film Productions in Taiwan and Bardel Entertainment in Canada. However, because Amblimation was occupied with both Balto and The Witch Stone, the studio devoted more animators and resources on that film than on Natalia's Story.
Music[]
The songs were written by Will Jennings. The film's score was composed by James Horner. An accompanying soundtrack was released on November 26, 1996.
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Release[]
Natalia's Story was initially scheduled to be released on July 26, 1996, but was pushed back to November 27, 1996. The film was preceded by the new Noveltoons short (Blooper) Fox!.
Marketing[]
The film was accompanied with a promotional campaign with promotional licensees including Burger King, which released a set of six Kids' Meal toys as a tie-in for the film's release.
Home media[]
Natalia's Story was released on VHS and LaserDisc by Paramount Home Video on May 13, 1997. A DVD version was first made available on March 15, 2000. On October 10, 2003, as part of Paramount Animation Collection, the film was released as a 2-disc special edition DVD including newly made extras such as a commentary track and a featurette. The film was also released on Game Boy Advance Video in November 2005 and on UMD for the PlayStation Portable. On June 20, 2006, a two-disc DVD was released for the film's tenth anniversary, featuring much of the bonus material from the 2000 DVD as well as newer features. It was released in widescreen on Blu-ray for the first time on February 4, 2014.
On November 8, 2016, Paramount released Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray for Natalia's Story, to commemorate the film's 20th anniversary, as part of Paramount Signature Collection.
On March 4, 2021, Natalia's Story, along with The World of Fairy Tales, Meredith's Journey and other Paramount Animation films, became available on Paramount+.
Reception[]
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Media[]
Sequels[]
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TV series[]
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Transcripts[]
Main[]
To see the main transcript of the film, click here.
Trailers[]
To see the transcript for the trailers of the film, click here.