The turn of the 21st century saw a massive shift in animation. While the 1990s had been dominated by Disney’s renaissance of hand-drawn animated musicals, the release of Toy Story by Pixar showed the world that not only could CGI be used to make full-length motion pictures, but audiences were eager to watch them. As more animation studios began to produce CGI movies, 2D ones struggled to turn a profit. Nowadays, many of these movies have garnered cult followings, but at the time, examples like 20th Century Fox’s Titan A.E. and Disney’s Treasure Planet were disastrous failures at the box office. One of the worst bombs of this time came from DreamWorks’ Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. It was the last of their hand-drawn films, and only grossed $80 million at the box office against a $60 million budget. This meant that, according to a 2005 article from the LA Times, the film lost $125 million in total.
But why was this the case? By all accounts, the film should have worked. It had a strong cast, including Brad Pitt, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. It’s also gorgeously animated in DreamWorks’ unique 2D style, giving the characters a fluid movement that captures the mythical tone. It was also released a week ahead of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and the success of that film showed people were eager to experience high-seas adventure. The answers lie within a tricky production history and changing times that saw the story become about Sinbad the Sailor in name only.
‘Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas’ Was a Storm of Conflicting Visions
Sinbad is one of the most famous characters from the One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of Middle Eastern stories that includes “Aladdin and the Magic Lamp” and “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”. In fact, the story of DreamWorks’ Sinbad movie began with the conclusion of Disney’s Aladdin. Screenwriting duo Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, who worked on Aladdin (and would later write the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films), decided to pitch an adaptation of Damon and Pythias, a story about friends who were willing to sacrifice for each other, with a love triangle for drama and the humor of a screwball comedy. It was shelved by 1993, but picked up again after the duo worked on The Road to El Dorado for DreamWorks—another beloved film that bombed on release. They were joined by John Logan, the screenwriter behind Gladiator.
Elliott and Rossio’s original script wasn’t too different from the structure of the final film: Sinbad (Brad Pitt) is framed by the goddess Eris (Michelle Pfeiffer) for the theft of an important book and put to death. His best friend Proteus (Joseph Fiennes) takes his place while Sinbad sails off to find the book, accompanied by Proteus’s love, Marina (Catherine Zeta-Jones), to ensure Sinbad keeps his word. Adventures are had, Sinbad and Marina grow closer, and, in the end, the day is saved because Sinbad kept his word. However, the early draft leaned a little too hard on the love triangle.
While Sinbad did fall in love with Marina, he refused to get in the way of her and Proteus’ relationship, and ended the film sailing off on another adventure. Sadly, this was one of the biggest changes demanded by DreamWorks executives. Who’s ever heard of a film where the leading man and woman didn’t end up together, anyway? As Rossio wrote in the Wordplay Column “The One Hundred Million Dollar Mistake”: “If Sinbad used the opportunity given to him by his friend to steal the woman away, it would always feel like a betrayal of the friendship. There was no nobility for Sinbad to return in the name of friendship yet turn hound-dog when it came to the romance.” The solution the studio came up with was to simply change it so that Proteus and Marina were never in love, but instead were betrothed for diplomatic reasons.
The magic book was also altered: in the original script, it was called the Book of Fates and was necessary to help pick a new leader for Syracuse. The twist ending was that it would pick Marina to be the new queen, as she proved herself worthy of rule throughout the adventure. But with Marina now sailing off with Sinbad, the book was renamed the Book of Peace and became a confusing McGuffin. Rossio tried explaining the problems through a memo, but to no avail. By April 2001, he and Elliott had departed the project.
These behind-the-scenes clashes permeate the finished product. The film feels like it’s at war with itself, trying to be both an epic adventure about integrity and the bonds of friendship while also throwing in juvenile dialogue and humor that clash with the mythical setting. Sinbad’s character was also altered. Rather than the traditionally wise and heroic character seen in the trio of Sinbad films featuring stop-motion from Ray Harryhausen, he is made to be a more self-serving character. While this may have been done so he could undergo a character arc, the film goes too far when our introduction to Sinbad is him wanting to steal the Book of Peace so that he can ransom it for lots of money.
Even when the entire world is thrown into chaos by the book’s abduction, and he is given the chance to clear his name by Proteus, his first instinct is to run away to Fiji. It’s a level of selfishness that makes it hard to care about him as a character, and his forced, enemies-to-lovers romance with Marina does little to fix this.
A Greek Odyssey, Not an Arabian Adventure
You might have noticed that the important city in Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas is Syracuse rather than Sinbad’s traditional home city of Baghdad. In fact, the entire film has shifted focus from the Middle East to Greece. Marina is a diplomat from Thebes whose marriage to Proteus will bind the cities together. The antagonist, Eris, is the Greek goddess of strife and discord. Her monsters include Cetus, a sea monster killed by the hero Perseus, and Sirens, creatures encountered by Odysseus that use enchanting voices to lure sailors to their deaths. Even the story that inspired the structure of this film, Damon and Pythias, is of Greek origin.
The decision to shift from Arabic to Hellenistic mythology comes down to the people involved and the political climate at the time. To write his script, John Logan looked up several versions of Sinbad and his seven voyages. In a 2003 interview with IGN, he said that since he was “… still so much in Gladiator mode that I was like, yes, Greek and Roman – this is a world I know! The Persian Sinbad, on the other hand, was just a little too much work for me.” Now, nobody is denying that Greek mythology is cool. There is a reason why it is arguably the most well-known mythology in the world, and its creatures have become staples of fantasy pop culture, but by choosing to solely focus on Greek mythology, it reinforces the false idea that only European mythologies are universal.
Then there is the fact that this film was released in 2003. Between 9/11 and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, tensions were high regarding fictitious portrayals of Middle Eastern culture and characters. DreamWorks is, like all companies, in the business of making as much money as possible, so they settled on the more recognized and less controversial mythology to avoid rustling any feathers. Dr. Jack Shaheen—a critic of Hollywood’s depiction of Arab characters who asked Katzenberg to include references to Arab culture in the film—said at the time, “This was an ideal opportunity to shatter some stereotypes about Arab and Muslim villains… I know that DreamWorks were among the companies that spoke to Bush’s adviser Karl Rove shortly after September 11, to see how Hollywood could help…I think they were worried that if they took a risk on an Arab hero they might have suffered at the box office”.
Say what you will about older films based on the One Thousand and One Nights, such as the Harryhausen Sinbad trilogy or the 1940s The Thief of Baghdad, but by keeping the Arabic culture, it gave the films their own identity. There was no mistaking Baghdad for Rome, and mythical creatures like the wish-granting jinn and the titan-sized roc could be just as impressive as those from Greek mythology. By stripping away these elements, DreamWorks ensured that Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas has no identity of its own.
Its world and characters feel like any other fantasy film set in the ancient past, yet its use of pop-culture references and anachronistic jokes tethers it to modern times. No wonder audiences were flocking to Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl; it was a film that provided the same swashbuckling adventure on the high seas, but took risks and presented audiences with something they hadn’t seen before.
‘Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas’ Failed to Navigate Modern Industry Waters
With so many films from the early 2000s being re-evaluated, how does Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas fare today? Simply put, it’s the most forgotten of the bunch. It’s not funny like The Road to El Dorado or The Emperor’s New Groove, nor is it creative with its worldbuilding like Titan A.E. or Treasure Planet. It’s just a safe, paint-by-numbers children’s adventure movie that does what you’d expect. The selfish hero learns to sacrifice for others, gets the girl, and teaches kids about the importance of keeping your word, especially to a friend. This isn’t bad in and of itself, but it makes it hard to justify watching the movie over any others.
If anything good can be said about this film, it’s how they portrayed Eris. While far from DreamWorks’ best antagonist, she stands as an example of the strength of their 2D artists. They animated Eris as if she were made of smoke, constantly shifting, vanishing during her scenes, all with perfect fluidity. It not only makes her feel detached and unique from every other character, but it also stands as the beautiful artistry that can be achieved with 2D animation.
Sadly, a terrific villain cannot make up for an unfocused script and flat characters. Audiences at the time felt the same, leading to the film bombing so hard that it nearly bankrupted DreamWorks. Ironically, in underdeveloping the bond between Sinbad and Proteus, and scrubbing the film of its Arabic roots, Sinbad: The Legend of the Seven Seas became a movie that preached integrity while sacrificing its own.