Quest for Camelot (released internationally as The Magic Sword: Quest for Camelot) is a 1998 American animated musical fantasy film directed by Frederik Du Chau and written by Kirk DeMicco, William Schifrin, and the writing team of Jacqueline Feather and David Seidler. Loosely inspired by the 1976 novel The King's Damosel by Vera Chapman, the film stars Jessalyn Gilsig, Cary Elwes, Gary Oldman, Eric Idle, Don Rickles, Jane Seymour, Pierce Brosnan, Bronson Pinchot, Jaleel White, Gabriel Byrne and John Gielgud (in his final film role). The story follows Kayley (Gilsig), an adventurous young woman whose father was a Knight of the Round Table killed by the evil Sir Ruber (Oldman). When Ruber's renewed plot to usurp Camelot from King Arthur (Brosnan) by stealing Arthur's sword Excalibur goes awry, Kayley joins the blind hermit Garrett (Elwes) and a two-headed dragon, Devon and Cornwall (Idle and Rickles), in a quest to retrieve the sword and save the kingdom. It features seven original songs written by David Foster and Carole Bayer Sager, and an original musical orchestral score composed by Patrick Doyle.
Initially titled The Quest for the Grail, the film was announced in May 1995 as Warner Bros. Feature Animation's debut project, with Bill Kroyer and Du Chau jointly directing the film. It began production later that year, but faced delays when animators were reassigned to help finish Space Jam (1996). During the interim, the story was heavily reworked, with the narrative's central focus being changed from the Holy Grail to Excalibur. Creative differences spurred by these alterations resulted in prominent members of the animation and management staff, including Kroyer, leaving the project. Due to its troubled production, the film's release was pushed back by six months. Animation was mostly done in Glendale, California and in London.
Quest for Camelot was released by Warner Bros. under their Family Entertainment label on May 15, 1998, in the US and Canada. It received mixed reviews from critics and was a box-office disappointment, grossing $38.1 million worldwide against a $40 million production budget. One of the film's songs, "The Prayer", won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Plot
Sir Lionel, a knight of the Round Table, is killed foiling an assassination attempt on King Arthur by the evil Sir Ruber, who is then driven off by Excalibur, Arthur's sword. During Lionel's funeral, Arthur informs Lionel's widow Lady Juliana and his daughter Kayley that Camelot is always open to them. Kayley dreams of becoming a knight, like her father, and she trains herself while working on the farm.
A decade later, Ruber's griffin attacks Camelot and steals Excalibur, leaving Arthur injured. Merlin the wizard's pet falcon Ayden attacks the griffin, causing it to drop the sword into the Forbidden Forest. When Kayley learns what has occurred, she plans to search for Excalibur, but gets into an argument with her mother, who fears for her life. Ruber attacks the farm and abducts Kayley and Juliana with intent of using them to gain access to Camelot. He uses a potion he acquired from witches to fuse his henchmen and a henpecked rooster named Bladebeak with their weapons. Ruber becomes angry when he learns Excalibur is lost in the Forbidden Forest. Overhearing this, Kayley escapes into the forest, pursued by the steel men and Bladebeak. She is saved by a blind hermit Garrett and Ayden. After learning of the theft, Garrett plans to find Excalibur with Ayden and Kayley persuades Garrett to let her join the quest. Meanwhile, Ruber learns of this from Bladebeak and decides to follow them to obtain Excalibur.
Kayley and Garrett encounter a wisecracking two-headed dragon Devon and Cornwall. The two dislike each other and dream of being separated; due to their disagreement, they cannot fly or breathe fire. After helping them evade from a group of attacking dragons, who are taken out by Ruber and his henchmen, Devon and Cornwall join their quest. During a night of rest, much to Kayley's reluctance, Garrett reveals he was once a stable boy in Camelot who dreamt of becoming a knight. While saving horses from a fire, he was kicked in the head which caused his blindness. Following the accident, Lionel still believed in Garrett and trained him personally. Garrett teaches Kayley more about the forest, including the existence of magical healing plants.
The next day, after only finding Excalibur's belt in a giant footprint, Kayley's frustrated ranting unintentionally distracts Garrett from hearing Ayden's warning, causing him to get injured by Ruber's men. Kayley saves him by using the sentient trees to trap Ruber and his men. She escorts Garrett to a remote cave where she uses a healing plant to heal his wounds. They reconcile and profess their love for each other. Discovering the scabbard, the group enter a giant cave where a rock-like ogre holds Excalibur, using it as a toothpick. They recover Excalibur and manage to evade Ruber.
After reaching the end of the forest, Garrett gives Excalibur to Kayley and returns to the forest, claiming he does not belong in Camelot. However, Ruber captures Kayley and takes Excalibur. He melds it to his right arm with his potion before imprisoning Kayley in the wagon with Juliana. Devon and Cornwall witness this and inform Garrett, who decides to go and rescue Kayley. By collaborating for the first time, Devon and Cornwall are able to fly and breathe fire, and they fly Garrett to Camelot. Meanwhile, Bladebeak reconciles with his constantly henpecking hen and frees Kayley from her ropes. She warns the guards of Ruber's trap, exposing him and his steel men. Garrett, Devon and Cornwall arrive shortly to assist.
While Devon and Cornwall save Ayden by breathing fire at the griffin, Kayley and Garrett discover Ruber attempting to kill Arthur inside the castle. They intervene and trick Ruber into returning Excalibur to the stone. Ruber is vaporized by the stone's magic, which reverts his henchmen, including Bladebeak, back to normal, restores Excalibur to its original state, heals Arthur, and temporarily separates Devon and Cornwall, who decide to reunite. Later, with Excalibur returned to Arthur, Kayley and Garrett are made knights of the Round Table and ride off into the distance together on horseback.
Voice cast Jessalyn Gilsig as Kayley, a young woman who aspires to be a knight. Andrea Corr as Kayley's singing voice. Sarah Rayne (Also known as Sarah Freeman) as young Kayley. Cary Elwes as Garrett, a blind hermit who joins Kayley's quest. Bryan White as Garrett's singing voice. Gary Oldman as Lord Ruber, an evil knight plotting to steal Excalibur in order to become king of Camelot and is loosely based on the Red Knight. Eric Idle and Don Rickles as Devon and Cornwall, a comic relief two-headed dragon whom Kayley and Garrett meet. Devon is long-necked, intellectual and polite while Cornwall is short-necked, lowbrow and wisecracking. Jane Seymour as Juliana, Kayley's widowed mother, who has reservations over Kayley becoming a knight. Celine Dion as Juliana's singing voice. Pierce Brosnan as King Arthur, the legendary King of England who resides in Camelot. Steve Perry as King Arthur's singing voice. Bronson Pinchot as Griffin, Ruber's pet and enforcer. Jaleel White as Bladebeak, a rooster who is fused with an axe by Ruber. Gabriel Byrne as Sir Lionel, Kayley's father who is killed by Ruber when defending King Arthur. Before his death, Lionel trained Garrett when he was younger, even after he was rendered blind. John Gielgud as Merlin, a wizard and Arthur's advisor. This was the last film of Gielgud's career. Frank Welker as Ayden, Merlin's pet falcon that guides Garrett.
Production In May 1995, The Quest for the Grail was Warner Bros. Feature Animation's first announced project. Bill Kroyer and Frederik Du Chau were announced as the directors, with Sue Kroyer serving as co-producer. The initial story centered around a young female character named Susannah, who embarks on a dangerous quest for the Holy Grail to save her sister from the ruthless and powerful Red Knight. Elizabeth Chandler, who had co-written the screenplay for A Little Princess (1995), was enlisted to write the script. However, she was replaced by a team of several screenwriters, which included Kirk DeMicco (who went on to direct The Croods and Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken). Prior to his involvement, DeMicco had sold his spec script A Day in November to Warner Bros. for $1 million. According to Lauren Faust, who was an animator for the film, it was initially envisioned with a PG-13 rating and was meant to draw homage to Ralph Bakshi's Wizards (1977), but it was changed to be more family-friendly to compete with the Disney Renaissance films.
The film was put into production before the story was finalized. However, during the fall of 1995, the animators were reassigned to finish Space Jam (1996). Meanwhile, in April 1996, Christopher Reeve was cast as King Arthur. During the interim, several story changes were made that resulted in creative differences between the Kroyers and the studio management. In particular, Excalibur replaced the Holy Grail, which Warner Bros. Feature Animation president Max Howard felt better reflected the film's setting: "The symbol of Camelot is the power of Excalibur, and that became a more interesting theme: Whoever held the sword, held the power." By the middle of 1996, the Kroyers were allegedly fired by Howard, who later moved on to developing another project at Warner Bros. Feature Animation.
Following the departure of the Kroyers, two supervising animators along with several employees in the studio's art department subsequently left the project. The film's initial producer, Frank Gladstone, left the project in February 1997 and was replaced with Dalisa Cohen. Effects supervisor Michel Gagné recalled that "People were giving up. The head of layout was kicked out, the head of background, the executive producer, the producer, the director, the associate producer—all the heads rolled. It's kind of a hard environment to work in." Eventually, Du Chau was promoted to be the film's director. Meanwhile, Reeve was replaced by Pierce Brosnan when he became unavailable to record new dialogue.
In an article in Animation Magazine, Chrystal Klabunde, the leading animator of Garrett, stated, "It was top heavy. All the executives were happily running around and playing executive, getting corner offices—but very few of them had any concept about animation at all, about doing an animated film. It never occurred to anybody at the top that they had to start from the bottom and build that up. The problems were really coming at the inexperience of everyone involved. Those were people from Disney that had the idea that you just said, 'Do it,' and it gets done. It never occurred to them that it got done because Disney had an infrastructure in place, working like clockwork. We didn't have that." Reportedly, "cost overruns and production nightmares" led the studio to "reconsider their commitment to feature animation." Filmmaker Brad Bird (who directed The Iron Giant, Warner Bros.' next animated film) thought that micromanaging, which he said had worked well for Disney but not for Warner Bros., had been part of the problem.
Animation