The Forbidden Man

The Forbidden Man is a 2003 animated mystery thriller film directed by Garrett Fredrickson and produced by Reinhard Klooss, Eiichi Takahashi, and Jerry Bruckheimer. Starring the voices of Nick Stahl, Claudia Christian, Tina Fey, John Hurt, Michael Clarke Duncan, Toby Kebbell, Richard Harris, Mike McShane, and Glenn Close, it is about an amnesiac man who becomes protected by a secret society as he is being persecuted by a government officer for possible witchcraft.

The film began development in 1999, during production of The Angel and the Introvert, when director Garrett Fredrickson wanted to see if he could try and make an animated film in the veins of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, and he later got the idea for the movie after watching the legal drama series Law and Order and reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Fredrickson enlisted Jerry Bruckheimer as a producer around 2000 and Epsilon Motion Pictures and Denstu Inc joined the production as co-financers. The film's animation was handled by Japan based Bones, Inc. with some additional animation being outsourced to other Japanese studios.

The Forbidden Man premiered at the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland, California on August 8, 2003 and was released in select theaters by Newmarket Films on August 22, before expanding into a wider release on September 12. The film recieved positive reviews from critics and grossed about $325.4 million during it's run against a budget of $50 million. The film was dedicated to the memory of Richard Harris, who passed away during the production in 2002.

Plot
Coming soon!

Cast

 * Nick Stahl as Gavin "Wilfrid" Chandler
 * Claudia Christian as Andie Sarratt
 * Tina Fey as Louise Harding
 * John Hurt as Officer Philbert "Phil" Garner
 * Michael Clarke Duncan as Vincent Kinsman
 * Toby Kebbell as Doug Perry
 * Richard Harris as Fletcher Kingsley
 * Mike McShane as Ivor Stevens
 * Glenn Close as Eileen Lambert
 * Carl Andy

Additional Voices

 * Rodger Bumpass
 * Tom Kenny
 * Sherry Lynn
 * Jack Angel
 * Patrick Pinney
 * Jess Harnell
 * Corey Burton
 * Jennifer Darling
 * Bill Farmer
 * Bob Bergen
 * Rob Paulsen
 * Neil Ross
 * Will Ryan
 * Candi Milo

Development
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Writing
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Animation
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Casting
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Distribution and Marketing
Like with a lot of Garrett Fredrickson films, the movie was produced without a distributor. Fredrickson recounted that the film was very hard to sell to potential distributors: "This was a film no one had attempted in animation before, none of the distributors seemed to want it because of that." Producer Jerry Bruckheimer also assumed that the dark tone was what alienated distributors: "The problem was not that the film was bad, the problem was that distributors did not know what to do with it. Action oriented animated films were nothing new, as Atlantis: The Lost Empire had come out only two years prior, but an animated thriller film was something no one had ever tried before, usually when an animated film wasn't for a four-quadrant audience, it tended to lean more towards a comedic side rather than a more emotionally gripping side, it seemed that those kinds of films sold more." Buena Vista Pictures had a first-look deal with Jerry Bruckheimer Films, but they decided to pass on the film for the film's content. In order to avoid the spectacle of other studios turning down the film, Fredrickson decided to distribute the film in the United States himself, with the aid of Newmarket Films.

More coming soon!

Release
The Forbidden Man premiered at the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland, California on August 8, 2003 and was released in select theaters by Newmarket Films on August 22, before expanding into a wider release on September 12. The film was released in Germany by Universum Film on October 17, 2003 and in Japan by Toho-Towa on January 17, 2004. Icon Entertainment International handled distribution in all other territories.

Home media
On March 9, 2004, the film was released on VHS and a two-disc "Special Edition" DVD by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. The VHS release came in two versions—pan-and-scan, and a widescreen version. The DVD release contains several documentaries, soundtrack commentaries, deleted scenes, and the film's trailers and TV spots.

Box Office
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Critical Response
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