The Pebble and the Penguin
Short description
The Pebble and the Penguin is an animated family adventure about a shy penguin named Hubie who hopes to win the affection of Marina, a penguin he admires from afar. In their colony, a male courts a female by presenting her with a special stone, and the pair then stay together for life. Hubie finds a remarkable pebble, but a rival named Drake, who also wants Marina, throws him into the sea before he can give it to her. Carried far from his Antarctic home, Hubie sets out to make his way back and reach Marina, encountering dangers and gaining companions along the way. The film was directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, and it followed their earlier features Thumbelina and A Troll in Central Park. The voice cast includes Martin Short as Hubie, Annie Golden as Marina, Tim Curry as Drake and Jim Belushi as Rocko, from a screenplay by Rachel Koretsky and Steven Whitestone.
The film was released in 1995 and runs 74 minutes. Made for about 28 million dollars, it took roughly 4 million dollars worldwide, a return well below its cost. Audiences have been modest in their assessment: it holds a rating of 5.6 out of 10 on IMDb from around 6,000 votes, with a lower 5.2 out of 10 on TMDB from a much smaller number of votes. A later entry in the directing partnership's run of animated features, it sits between their mid-1990s work and the films that followed, including Anastasia.
What's left behind the scenes
- Don Bluth, the producer and one of the directors, was so disappointed with the final film that he and the co-director, Gary Goldman, demanded that their names not be mentioned among the film's creators. As a result, the credits listed "Don Bluth Ireland Limited Production" instead of the directors' names.
- To a certain extent, the American distributor, MGM, was to blame for the problems with the film's production. As work on the film neared completion, the distributor began to insist on making certain changes. They specifically demanded the removal of some characters, the shortening or complete removal of some scenes, the re-voicing of some roles, and even changes to the animation in some cases, all of which had to be done quickly to meet the deadline. For this reason, the coloring of some scenes had to be entrusted to Hungarian animation studios.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
