The Shards of the Dreamer

The Shards of the Dreamer is a 1997 animated fantasy comedy-drama action film directed by Garrett Fredrickson and written by John Patrick Shanley. Loosely inspired by the 1939 short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, the film is about a retired writer (Chevy Chase), who starts to become an escapist daydreaming about a fantasy world ruled by a beautiful princess (Sheena Easton), however, when he begins seeing people in real life who look extraordinarily similar to those in his dreams, he begins to wonder whether or not he is truly human.

The film was produced by Nightstorm Productions and animated by Studio Deen. It was originally going to be released on August 15, 1997 by Universal Pictures, but due to production issues, Universal backed out of the project and sold the distribution rights to DreamWorks Pictures, making it the first animated film to be released by the company. It was eventually released on October 17, 1997 by DreamWorks Pictures, where it grossed $165 million against a budget of $40 million and received mixed to positive reviews from critics, with much praise going to the worldbuilding, characterization and voice acting, but there was some criticism toward the story.

Plot
Coming soon!

Cast

 * Chevy Chase as Stephan Parham, a retired writer who starts to daydream about being transported to a fantasy realm.
 * Sheena Easton as Princess Harper, the princess of the fantasy realm in Stephan's dreams, and Cassandra Brewer, a woman that Stephan meets who looks remarkably similar to Harper.
 * Frank Welker as Reckor, a raven-like monster who seeks to destroy the realm in Stephan's dreams. He may or may not have been the inspiration for The Raven from the anime series Princess Tutu.
 * Kevin Bacon as Ryan Ballard, Stephan's good friend and editor when he was still a writer.
 * Alicia Silverstone as Edie Pope, Stephan's niece.
 * Fred Willard as Danni, a jester for Princess Harper who seems to harbor feelings for her and is rather jealous of Stephan due to his impact on her life, and Harvey Palmer, a businessman who looks rather similar to Danni that Cassandra is associated with.
 * Michael McShane
 * Grey DeLisle
 * Bryan Cranston
 * Jim Cummings
 * Carl Andy (camero)
 * Ronnie Corbett as the Narrator.

Development
Coming soon!

Casting
Coming soon!

Animation
Coming soon!

Music
Coming soon!

Release
The Shards of the Dreamer was originally going to be released on August 15, 1997 by Universal Pictures, but due to production issues such as recasts and some financial issues, they pulled the film from it's release date and backed out of distribution. DreamWorks Pictures would purchase the distribution rights from Universal in May of 1997, and released the film in theaters on October 17, 1997. It was originally planned for a November 21, 1997 release, but the release was moved up to avoid competition with Anastasia and to avoid furthering the feud between DreamWorks and Disney due to the re-release of The Little Mermaid being the week after.

Marketing
The Shards of the Dreamer was Garrett Fredrickson's first film to have a fast-food tie in, specifically with Burger King. Fredrickson had long been critical of these sorts of tie ins, saying "Kids need to get food that they shouldn't eat all the time just for a toy? That's a little bit shrewd if you ask me." but he decided to give in for this film. Other tie in deals for the film included deals with American Online, Shell Oil, NBC, TOMY, and Dole Food Company.

Home media
The Shards of the Dreamer was first released on VHS and Laserdisc by DreamWorks Home Entertainment on March 24, 1998, and later on DVD on December 8, 1998. The original DVD release of the film was sourced from a 35mm print of the film rather than a digitally encoded version of the film, similar occurences would happen with their DVD releases of Antz and The Prince of Egypt.

On October 19, 2004, DreamWorks Animation rereleased the film as a "Special Edition" DVD, this release contained a newly remastered version of the film, with some deleted scenes restored, and improved acoustic effects, remixed dialogue and remastered soundtrack for 5.1 stereo sound. The film would later be released on Blu-Ray by DreamWorks on May 8, 2012, this release containing both cuts of the film. Universal Pictures Home Entertainment reprinted both the Blu-Ray and DVD of the film on June 12, 2018.

Box office
The Shards of the Dreamer made $164 million worldwide against a budget of $40 million.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, The Shards of the Dreamer has an approval rating of 84% based on 182 reviews, with an average rating of 7.6 out of 10, the site's critical consensus reads "The Shards of the Dreamer makes for a charming and thought provoking film, which also gives Garrett Fredrickson a way to show off his talent in making a fantasy world." On Metacritic, the film has 73 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews."

Roger Ebert gave the film a 3 out of 4 stars saying "Garrett Fredrickson's sense of creativity here is flowing throughout, and the story makes quite good use of it's somewhat bizarre premise." Gene Siskel agreed saying that "The Shards of the Dreamer might be one of the best fantasy films I've seen during this decade."

Cancelled sequel
Garrett Fredrickson was considering making a sequel to the film, but due to DreamWorks' decision to stop producing 2-D animated films and because of him working on other projects, he decided not to do so.