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Finding Nemo is a 2003 American computer-animated adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed and co-written by Andrew Stanton with co-direction by Lee Unkrich, the screenplay was written by Bob Peterson, David Reynolds, and Stanton from a story by Stanton. The film stars the voices of Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, and Willem Dafoe. It tells the story of an overprotective clownfish named Marlin who, along with a regal blue tang named Dory, searches for his missing son Nemo. Along the way, Marlin learns to take risks and comes to terms with Nemo taking care of himself.

 

Released on May 30, 2003, Finding Nemo won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, the first Pixar film to do so. It was also nominated in three more categories, including Best Original Screenplay. Additionally, it became the highest-grossing animated film at the time of its release, and was the second-highest-grossing film of 2003, earning a total of $871 million worldwide by the end of its initial theatrical run.

 

Finding Nemo is the best-selling DVD title of all time, with over 40 million copies sold as of 2006, and was the highest-grossing G-rated film of all time before Pixar's own Toy Story 3 overtook it. The film was re-released in 3D in 2012. In 2008, the American Film Institute named it as the 10th greatest animated film ever made as part of their 10 Top 10 lists. In a 2016 poll of international critics conducted by BBC, Finding Nemo was voted one of the 100 greatest motion pictures since 2000. The sequel, Finding Dory, was released in June 2016.

 

Production

The inspiration for Nemo sprang from multiple experiences, going back to director Andrew Stanton's childhood, when he loved going to the dentist to see the fish tank, assuming that the fish were from the ocean and wanted to go home. In 1992, shortly after his son was born, he and his family took a trip to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (which was called Marine World at the time). There, after seeing the shark tube and various exhibits, he felt that the underwater world could be done beautifully in computer animation. Later, in 1997, he took his son for a walk in the park but realized that he was overprotecting him and lost an opportunity to have a father-son experience that day.

 

In an interview with National Geographic magazine, Stanton said that the idea for the characters of Marlin and Nemo came from a photograph of two clownfish peeking out of an anemone:

 

It was so arresting. I had no idea what kind of fish they were, but I couldn't take my eyes off them. And as an entertainer, the fact that they were called clownfish—it was perfect. There's almost nothing more appealing than these little fish that want to play peekaboo with you.

 

In addition, clownfish are colorful, but do not tend to come out of an anemone often. For a character who has to go on a dangerous journey, Stanton felt a clownfish was the perfect type of fish for the character. Pre-production of the film began in early 1997. Stanton began writing the screenplay during the post-production of A Bug's Life. As a result, Finding Nemo began production with a complete screenplay, something that co-director Lee Unkrich called "very unusual for an animated film". The artists took scuba diving lessons to study the coral reef.

 

Stanton originally planned to use flashbacks to reveal how Coral died but realized that by the end of the film there would be nothing to reveal, deciding to show how she died at the beginning of the movie. The character of Gill also was different from the character seen in the final film. In a scene that was eventually deleted, Gill tells Nemo that he's from a place called Bad Luck Bay and that he has brothers and sisters in order to impress the young clownfish, only for the latter to find out that he was lying by listening to a patient reading a children's storybook that shares exactly the same details.

 

The casting of Albert Brooks, in Stanton's opinion, "saved" the film. Brooks liked the idea of Marlin being this clownfish who isn't funny and recorded outtakes of telling very bad jokes.

 

The idea for the initiation sequence came from a story conference between Andrew Stanton and Bob Peterson while they were driving to record the actors. Although he originally envisioned the character of Dory as male, Stanton was inspired to cast Ellen DeGeneres when he watched an episode of Ellen in which he saw her "change the subject five times before finishing one sentence". The pelican character named Gerald (who in the final film ends up swallowing and choking on Marlin and Dory) was originally a friend of Nigel. They were going to play against each other with Nigel being neat and fastidious and Gerald being scruffy and sloppy. The filmmakers could not find an appropriate scene for them that did not slow the pace of the picture, so Gerald's character was minimized.

 

Stanton himself provided the voice of Crush the sea turtle. He originally did the voice for the film's story reel and assumed they would find an actor later. When Stanton's performance became popular in test screenings, he decided to keep his performance in the film. He recorded all his dialogue while lying on a sofa in Unkrich's office. Crush's son Squirt was voiced by Nicholas Bird, the young son of fellow Pixar director Brad Bird. According to Stanton, the elder Bird was playing a tape recording of his young son around the Pixar studios one day. Stanton felt the voice was "this generation's Thumper" and immediately cast Nicholas.

 

Megan Mullally was originally going to provide a voice in the film. According to Mullally, the producers were dissatisfied to learn that the voice of her character Karen Walker on the television show Will & Grace was not her natural speaking voice. The producers hired her anyway, and then strongly encouraged her to use her Karen Walker voice for the role. When Mullally refused, she was dismissed.

 

To ensure that the movements of the fish in the film were believable, the animators took a crash course in fish biology and oceanography. They visited aquariums, went diving in Hawaii, and received in-house lectures from an ichthyologist. As a result, Pixar's animator for Dory, Gini Cruz Santos, integrated "the fish movement, human movement, and facial expressions to make them look and feel like real characters." Production designer Ralph Eggleston created pastel drawings to give the lighting crew led by Sharon Calahan ideas of how every scene in the film should be lit.

 

The film was dedicated to Glenn McQueen, a Pixar animator who died of melanoma in October 2002. Finding Nemo shares many plot elements with Pierrot the Clownfish, a children's book published in 2002, but allegedly conceived in 1995. The author, Franck Le Calvez, sued Disney for infringement of his intellectual rights and to bar Finding Nemo merchandise in France. The judge ruled against him, citing the color differences between Pierrot and Nemo.

 

Localization

 

Patrick Stump performed a Navajo version of the end-credits song Beyond the Sea.

In 2016, Disney Character Voices International's senior vice president Rick Dempsey, in collaboration with the Navajo Nation Museum, created a Navajo dubbing of the movie titled Nemo Há’déést’íí which was released in theaters March 18–24 of the same year. The project was thought as a means to preserve Navajo language, teaching the language to kids through a Disney movie. The studio held auditions on the reservation, but finding an age-appropriate native speaker to voice Nemo was hard, Dempsey said, as the majority of native Navajo speakers are over 40 years old.  The end credits version of the song Beyond the Sea, covered in the English version by Robbie Williams, was also adapted into Navajo, with Fall Out Boy's lead singer Patrick Stump performing it. Finding Nemo was the second movie to receive a Navajo dubbing: in 2013, a Navajo version of Star Wars was created.

 

Reception

Box office

During its original theatrical run, Finding Nemo grossed $339.7 million in North America, and $531.3 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $871.0 million. It is the 12th highest-grossing animated film, and the second-highest-grossing film of 2003, behind The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Worldwide, it was the highest-grossing Pixar film, up until 2010, when Toy Story 3 surpassed it. The film sold an estimated 56.4 million tickets in the US in its initial theatrical run.

 

In North America, Finding Nemo set an opening weekend record for an animated feature, making $70.3 million (first surpassed by Shrek 2) and ended up spending 11 weeks in the top 10 domestically (including 7 weeks in the top 5), remaining there until August 14. It became the highest-grossing animated film in North America ($339.7 million), outside North America ($531.3 million), and worldwide ($871.0 million), in all three occasions out-grossing The Lion King. In North America, it was surpassed by both Shrek 2 in 2004 and Toy Story 3 in 2010. Outside North America, it stands as the fifth-highest-grossing animated film. Worldwide, it now ranks fourth among animated films.

 

The film had impressive box office runs in many international markets. In Japan, its highest-grossing market after North America, it grossed ¥11.2 billion ($102.4 million), becoming the highest-grossing foreign animated film in local currency (yen). It has only been surpassed by Frozen (¥25.5 billion). Following in biggest grosses are the U.K., Ireland and Malta, where it grossed £37.2 million ($67.1 million), France and the Maghreb region ($64.8 million), Germany ($53.9 million), and Spain ($29.5 million).

 

3D re-release

After the success of the 3D re-release of The Lion King, Disney re-released Finding Nemo in 3D on September 14, 2012, with a conversion cost estimated to be below $5 million. For the opening weekend of its 3D re-release in North America, Finding Nemo grossed $16.7 million, debuting at the No. 2 spot behind Resident Evil: Retribution. The film earned $41.1 million in North America and $28.2 million internationally, for a combined total of $69.3 million, and a cumulative worldwide total of $940.3 million.

 

Soundtrack

Finding Nemo was the first Pixar film not to be scored by Randy Newman. The original soundtrack album, Finding Nemo, was scored by Thomas Newman, his cousin, and released on May 20, 2003. The score was nominated for the Academy Award for Original Score, losing to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

 

Theme park attractions

Finding Nemo has inspired numerous attractions and properties at Disney Parks around the world, including: Turtle Talk with Crush, which opened in 2004 at Epcot, 2005 in Disney California Adventure Park, 2008 in Hong Kong Disneyland, and 2009 in Tokyo DisneySea; Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, which opened in 2007 in Disneyland Park; The Seas with Nemo & Friends, which opened in 2007 at Epcot; Finding Nemo – The Musical, which opened in 2007 in Disney's Animal Kingdom; and Crush's Coaster, which opened in 2007 at Walt Disney Studios Park.

 

(Wikipedia)