Sweet Destiny is a 2001 American hand-drawn/computer-animated science-fiction comedy film produced by Nickelodeon Movies and Imagine Entertainment and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Penny Fleischer and written by Tim Hill, J. David Stem, David N. Weiss, and Karey Kirkpatrick from a story by Fleischer. It stars the voices of Spencer Klein, Kath Soucie, Ashley Peldon, Gary LeRoi Gray, Jason Marsden, Willem Dafoe, Tony Jay, Jodi Benson, Christian Slater and Tim Curry. The film follows five kids who just got magical teleported into a virtual version of the board game Sweet Destiny, where they must defeated an evil overlord in order to find their way back to the real world.
The initial idea was conceived in 1996 by Penny Fleischer following work on her animated series Get Loose! when Nancy Farwell, William Mathews, River Becker and Brian Grazer approached her to make a new animated film for Paramount Feature Animation in co-production with Imagine Entertainment. The animation of the film uses hand-drawn 2D traditional animation with computer-generated imagery (CGI), with Paramount Feature Animation, Nickelodeon Animation Studio, and Paramount Digital Images handling animation services.
Sweet Destiny premiered at Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, California on April 26, 2001, and was released in the United States on May 4, 2001. It grossed $218.9 million against a $54 million budget and received mixed reviews from critics, with particular criticism directed at the film's sitcom-like production values and story. However, with its home media release, the film has since attained a cult following, particularly among those who grew up with the film. After the film's release, much of the CGI animation team regrouped to work on Paramount's fully CGI animated feature Twin, Duo, and Two. This resulted in a sequel entitled Sweet Quest, set to be written by Irene Mecchi, being cancelled.
Plot[]
Coming soon!
Cast[]
- Spencer Klein
- Kath Soucie
- Ashley Peldon
- Gary LeRoi Gray
- Jason Marsden
- Willem Dafoe
- Tony Jay
- Jodi Benson
- Christian Slater
- Tim Curry
More coming soon!
Additional voices[]
Coming soon!
Production[]
Development[]
Following the success of her animated series Get Loose! ahead of its premiere in October 1996, Penny Fleischer was approached by Brian Grazer of Imagine Entertainment, Nancy Farwell, William Mathews and River Becker to develop a new film at Paramount Pictures' Feature Animation division. Fleischer then pitched several ideas for the studio, in which among them (the one that was ultimately green-lit) was a concept of "a group of kids inside a virtual version of board game" she originally had as a proposed TV series for a few years prior to Get Loose!. Fleischer wrote a treatment and pitched it to Farwell, who was "definitely blown away" of the concept. Shortly after, pre-production on the film began under the working title Destiny & Virtual for a 2000 release.
On March 13, 1999, it was announced that Fleischer was directing the film, now entitled Sweet Destiny, with a set release date of 2001, with Tim Hill, J. David Stem, David N. Weiss and Karey Kirkpatrick hired to write the script while Grazer, Zaiden Fischer and Joe Medjuck would produce it. The film was initially set to be produced under the Paramount Feature Animation label, but later decided that it would be instead released under the Nickelodeon Movies brand following the success of Charity the Wicked Witch: The Cruse of the City and The Rugrats Movie. However, Paramount Animation was still involved in the project, but only working for the story development and animation services this time.
Animation[]
While the work was a Paramount animated production, it was considered far less essential than the studio's mainstream works at the time such as The Viking Warrior, and was given a far smaller budget compared to these films. Thus, Sweet Destiny was jointly produced by Paramount Feature Animation and Nickelodeon Animation Studio with Paramount Digital Images handling the CGI animated sequences. Pre-production was done at the main Feature Animation studio in Hollywood, California, starting as early as mid-1999. The animation work was done at Bardel Entertainment in Vancouver under the direction of Barry Ward and Delna Bhesania, and clean-up work done at the main Hollywood studio. Additional clean-up/animation was done by Yowza! Animation in Canada. Warner Bros. Animation also provided additional animation.
One of the film's goals was to blend different mediums of animation into one film to have such a seamless finish to the point you could not tell the difference between what was two-dimensional hand drawing or computer-generated 3D animations and environments. For the animation of Sweet Destiny, there are three main elements that were essential to the production of this film. The traditional 2D character animation, three-dimensional character animation, and the computer-generated or CG character animation and environments. According to Fleischer, he wanted to utilize computer animation for the virtual medieval scenes in the film as he described them as a "3D board game world". After several failed attempts to recruit computer animation companies for the CGI animation, Paramount took on the animation themselves through the Digital Images division, which produced the 2000 CGI-animated short Aero.
To ensure CG animation, 3D workbooks were created using Softimage 3D software. 54 animators worked on the film, using 300 computer processors to animate the CGI scenes. To make the 2D characters turn into CGI, Fleischer and fellow character designer Shannon Tindle had an orthographic view of the characters, and Fleischer's character designs were drawn on paper and scanned into the PowerAnimator software for the modelers to rig in the computers. The programs were "Fuzzy Tool," which was used for the characters' hair and clothing and to create fur and grass; "Body Builder," which was used to create skin and muscles for the characters; and "Mug Shot," a shape blender that works within Alias Maya for facial animation and lip-synching.
During post-production, the film was sent to Skywalker Sound, where the sound effects were mixed with the music score.
Music[]
Coming soon!
Release[]
Sweet Destiny was released in theaters on May 4, 2001, by Paramount Pictures. The film was accompanied by the animated short film Studiotopia, directed by John Levine and Matthew O'Callaghan.
Marketing[]
The first trailer was released theatrically in late 2000 with Rugrats in Paris: The Movie. A second trailer consisting of new animation debuted in March 2001.
A video game based on the film was developed by Argonaut Games and published by THQ for the PlayStation and Windows which was released on April 30, 2001. THQ also released two more video games for the Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color, which were developed by Vicarious Visions and Crawfish Interactive respectively. A PlayStation 2 version was scheduled for release in late 2001 to be developed by Eurocom but was never released for unknown reasons.
Home media[]
Sweet Destiny was released on VHS and DVD on November 27, 2001, by Paramount Home Entertainment. It was released as a Blu-ray-plus-DVD combination pack on March 29, 2011, and re-released again on DVD and Blu-ray on July 18, 2017.
Reception[]
Box office[]
Before the film's release, there were concerns that the film would have underwhelming results and be a box office failure due to the possible competition with another family film, Shrek. However, the film earned $82.8 million in North American theaters and another $136.1 million from other countries. The worldwide gross was $218.9 million against a budget of $54 million.
Critical reception[]
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Sweet Destiny has an approval rating of 57% collected from 78 reviews, with an average rating of 5.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Sweet Destiny may deserve points for its visuals and talented cast, but the script plays it too much like a Saturday morning cartoon you seen on Nickelodeon—and not often a funny or magical one to begin with." Metacritic gives the film a score of 51 out of 100 from 41 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Accolades[]
Coming soon!
Legacy[]
On October 25, 2001, Variety reported that Future Princess writer Irene Mecchi had signed a writing deal with Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies to write a direct-to-video sequel to Sweet Destiny titled Sweet Quest, which was to have the kids get teleported back to the board game as they go on a quest to stop an evil sorceress and along the way, the gang meets new friends and foes. Like the first film, it was planned to be produced by Imagine Entertainment with 2D and CGI animation provided again by Paramount Feature Animation and Paramount Digital Images, and was also considered for theatrical release. However, by 2003, the sequel was cancelled when Paramount merged the Digital Images division with the main Feature Animation studio following the box office failure of the 2D hand-drawn animated feature Magina.
More coming soon!
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.