The Road to El Dorado is a 2000 American animated musical comedy film directed by Eric "Bibo" Bergeron and Don Paul, from a screenplay by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, as well as additional sequences directed by Will Finn and David Silverman. Starring the voices of Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Rosie Perez, Armand Assante, and Edward James Olmos, the film follows a pair of Spanish con artists who, after winning the map to El Dorado, wash ashore in the New World; the map leads the two men to the city of El Dorado, where its inhabitants mistake them for gods.
The soundtrack features an instrumental score composed by Hans Zimmer and John Powell, and songs written by Elton John and Tim Rice. John also periodically narrates the story in song throughout the film. Produced by DreamWorks Animation and released by DreamWorks Pictures, it was the third animated feature produced by the studio.
The Road to El Dorado was theatrically released in the United States on March 31, 2000. It received mixed reviews from critics and was a box-office bomb, grossing $76 million worldwide on a production budget of approximately $95 million. Zimmer's work on the score, however, received praise and earned him the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Score alongside his work on Gladiator, another DreamWorks film, at the 6th Critics' Choice Awards. Despite its initial reception, reevaluation in later years has resulted in The Road to El Dorado becoming a cult classic.
Plot
In 1519 Spain, con-artists Tulio and Miguel win gold and a map to the legendary City of Gold, El Dorado, in a rigged dice gamble against some sailors, though they win the map fairly with normal dice. After their con is exposed, the two evade the guards and accidentally stow away on a ship to be led by conquistador Hernán Cortés for the New World. At sea, they are caught, imprisoned, and are condemned to slavery in Cuba, but they break free and steal a rowboat with the help of Cortés' mistreated horse named Altivo.
Their boat reaches land (somewhere in South America), where Miguel recognizes 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 beautiful 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 the city of El Dorado.
There, they meet the kindhearted Chief Tannabok, and his wicked advisor, high priest Tzekel-Kan. Mistaken for the twin gods, Miguel and Tulio are given luxurious quarters and placed in charge over Chel. However, she discovers their deception but promises to remain quiet if she leaves the city with them. Tannabok honors them with gifts of gold, though Miguel and Tulio disapprove of Tzekel-Kan's ritual sacrifice to honor the gods. Meanwhile, Cortés and his men reach land.
Tulio and Miguel instruct Tannabok to build them a boat so that they can leave the city with the gifts, under the ruse that they are needed back in the "other world". Chel falls in love with Tulio while Miguel comes to appreciate the peaceful life of the city. When Tzekel-Kan sees Miguel playing a ball game with children, he insists the "gods" demonstrate their powers against their best players. 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, berates Tzekel-Kan to the crowd's approval, and earns Tannabok's respect. Tzekel-Kan notices Miguel is bleeding from a wound and realizes the pair are not gods since "gods do not bleed", hence the reason for the sacrifices.
Afterwards, Miguel, who has reconsidered leaving the city, overhears Tulio telling Chel that he would like her to come with them to Spain before adding he would like her to come with specifically him and to forget Miguel. At a party being thrown for them, Miguel and Tulio have an argument until Tzekel-Kan animates a giant stone jaguar to chase them. Tulio and Miguel 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 become his right-hand man and leads him to El Dorado in exchange for helping him find the gold.
Miguel decides to stay in the city while Tulio and Chel board the completed boat, before they realize Cortés is approaching. Suspecting the city will be destroyed if Cortés discovers it, they close off the main entrance to the city by ramming the rock pillars under the waterfall, despite knowing they will lose the gold in the process. Selflessly sacrificing the chance to stay 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, while 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 a liar and takes him as a slave. Tulio and Miguel know that El Dorado is forever safe, though Tulio becomes upset they lost their gold (unaware that Altivo still has gold horseshoes). They nevertheless appreciate the thrill of their adventure and head for a new adventure with Chel.
Voice cast Kevin Kline as Tulio, a con artist and Miguel's friend. He is the strategic planner, often becoming anxious and overthinking things. Kenneth Branagh as Miguel, a con artist and Tulio's friend. Miguel is more relaxed and laid-back in contrast to Tulio's more frantic nature. Miguel becomes accustomed to the peaceful life in El Dorado and values the city's people as opposed to the gold. Rosie Perez as Chel, a beautiful woman from El Dorado who discovers Tulio and Miguel's con and decides to play along in hopes of escaping El Dorado with them for a life of adventure. She is also Tulio's love interest. Jim Cummings as Hernán Cortés, the merciless and ambitious conquistador leader of the expedition to find gold from the empires of the New World. He serves as the film's overarching antagonist. 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. Edward James Olmos as Chief Tannabok, the chief of El Dorado who was very skeptical of Tulio and Miguel being gods, but treats them with kindness and hospitality because of the good they show to his people. Armand Assante as Tzekel-Kan, the fanatically vicious high priest and Tannabok's advisor who has a religious fixation for human sacrifices. He initially believes Tulio and Miguel are gods until he discovers the truth and becomes Cortés's henchman. 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 (uncredited) Jerry Orbach as Mo (uncredited) Bob Bergen as Jaguar (uncredited) Duncan Marjoribanks as Acolyte
Production
Development Shortly before the public announcement of DreamWorks SKG in October 1994, former Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg met with screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, whom he previously met during production of Aladdin (1992). He gave them a copy of Hugh Thomas's 1993 book Conquest: Montezuma, Cortés and the Fall of Old Mexico, desiring to make an animated film set in the Age of Discovery. By the spring of 1995, Elliott and Rossio devised a story treatment inspired by the Road to... films, which starred Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, with self-interested, comedic anti-heroes who would set out to find the Lost City of Gold after acquiring a map to its location.
Will Finn and David Silverman were originally the film's directors with a tentative release scheduled for fall 1999. Originally, the story was envisioned as a dramatic film due to Katzenberg's penchant for large-scale animated films, which conflicted with the film's lighthearted elements. This version of the story had Miguel initially conceived as a raunchy Sancho Panza-like character who died, but came back to life so much that the natives assumed he was a god. This version also included steamier love sequences and scanty clothing designed for Chel. Elliott compared their script to the 1999 war comedy Three Kings, in which the ending dealt with the destruction of the Aztec Empire from Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.
However, while The Prince of Egypt was in production, Katzenberg decided that their next animated project should be a departure from its serious, adult approach. Instead, he pushed for El Dorado to be an adventure comedy. Because of this, the film was placed on hold, where it was jokingly referred to as El Dorado: The Lost City on Hold due to several rewrites. Miguel and Tulio were rewritten as petty swindlers, and the setting of the film was changed to a more luscious paradise. Additionally, the romance was toned down, and new clothing was designed for Chel. The film's producer Bonne Radford explained, "We originally thought it would be rated PG-13 and so we skewed it to that group... But then we thought we could not exclude the younger kids so we had to tone the romance down." Finn and Silverman left the project in 1998 following disagreements over the film's creative direction. They were replaced by Eric "Bibo" Bergeron and Don Paul. Katzenberg reportedly co-directed the film, albeit uncredited.
Casting On August 15, 1998, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, and Rosie Perez had signed onto the film. Because the characters and film drew from the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby Road to ... films, producer Bonne Radford remarked that "[t]he buddy relationship [between the duo] is the very heart of the story. They need each other because they're both pretty inept. They're opposites — Tulio is the schemer and Miguel is the dreamer. Their camaraderie adds to the adventure; you almost don't need to know where they're going or what they're after, because the fun is in the journey." Unusual for an animated film, Kline and Branagh recorded their lines in the same studio room together, in order for the two to achieve more realistic chemistry. This resulted in a good deal of improvised dialogue, some of which ended up in the film.
Animation Early into production, a team of designers, animators, producers, and Katzenberg embarked on research trips to Mexico where they studied ancient Mayan cities of Tulum, Chichen Itza, and Uxmal in hopes of making the film's architecture look authentic. By January 1997, 100 animators were assigned to the project. However, because the animation department was occupied with The Prince of Egypt, the studio devoted more animators and resources on that film than on Road to El Dorado. Additional fine line animation was outsourced to Stardust Pictures in London and Bardel Entertainment in Vancouver. The creation sequence in the film, possibly the opening number by Elton John, was provided with traditional animation and CGI provided by Pacific Data Images.
Music
Release Marketing The Road to El Dorado was first revealed in a double trailer with Aardman Animations' animated feature Chicken Run on the home video release of The Prince of Egypt. It was accompanied by a promotional campaign by Burger King.
Home media