Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Religious Music & Entertainment
The Prince of Egypt came out fifteen years ago today.

The Prince of Egypt came out fifteen years ago today.

Last updated on: October 4, 2016 at 12:01 pm by Peter T. Chattaway

The Prince of Egypt came out fifteen years ago today. 2016-10-04T12:01:19-07:00 Peter T. Chattaway

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

It was fifteen years ago today that The Prince of Egypt opened in theatres across North America. To mark the occasion, here are twelve things you may or may not know about the movie. (I would have come up with fifteen things, but didn’t have quite enough time.)

1. It came very close to being the first DreamWorks cartoon. It may seem hard to believe now, given that the DreamWorks brand has become associated with adolescent wise-ass humour and lots of pop-culture references, but when Jeffrey Katzenberg left Disney and co-founded the DreamWorks studio with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen in 1994, he aspired to epic greatness. After Katzenberg pitched the idea that animated films could take place on a grand scale like Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Spielberg suggested that they make an animated version of The Ten Commandments (1956) — and the resulting film was supposed to help establish the DreamWorks brand. At the last minute, however, Katzenberg decided to release Antz, a computer-animated film starring Woody Allen, in October 1998, two months before The Prince of Egypt came out — and so The Prince of Egypt did not quite become the first DreamWorks animated film to play in theatres. (Click here for an account of how the change to the Antz release date led to heightened tensions between Katzenberg and the guys at Disney-Pixar, whose A Bug’s Life was due to come out in November 1998.) Both Antz and The Prince of Egypt were, at the time, among the most successful non-Disney cartoons ever released, but in the years that followed, hand-drawn cartoons like The Road to El Dorado (2000) and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003) flopped, while computer-animated films like Shrek (2001) and Shark Tale (2004) turned out to be huge hits, so DreamWorks soon abandoned traditional animation altogether.

2. It was the first animated film from a major studio to be (co-)directed by a woman. The Prince of Egypt had three directors, one of whom, Brenda Chapman, became the first female director of a major animated film due to her work on this film. In the DVD commentary, Chapman mentions that she is very pregnant and due to give birth in a week or so; the resulting daughter served as the inspiration for Merida in Disney-Pixar’s Brave (2012), which Chapman was going to direct until the studio took the film out of her hands. As of this year, Chapman is back at DreamWorks.

3. One of the other directors is the great-grandson of sci-fi author H.G. Wells. Chapman’s two male co-directors were Steve Hickner and Simon Wells, the latter of whom went on to direct a live-action version of his great-grandfather’s book The Time Machine (2002). Since then, Wells has also directed a motion-capture version of Mars Needs Moms (2011). Hickner, for his part, went on to co-direct the DreamWorks cartoon Bee Movie (2007), which starred Jerry Seinfeld.

4. The script was written by Star Trek veterans. The screenplay is mainly credited to Philip LaZebnik, who, among other things, had co-written three episodes of The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine prior to this film; one of them, called ‘Darmok’, was partly inspired by the Epic of Gilgamesh. But the film’s credits also note that additional material was written by Nicholas Meyer, who may be best-known as the co-writer and director of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991); he also co-wrote the script for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986). (The voice of the Pharaoh Seti, meanwhile, was provided by Patrick Stewart, who made his second-to-last appearance as Captain Picard in Star Trek: Insurrection just one week before The Prince of Egypt came out.)

5. The voice of the Egyptian queen who adopts Moses was provided by Helen Mirren. In one of the DVD’s special features, Mirren says, “I was seduced into playing the role when I saw the drawing of this absolutely gorgeous woman. I’ve always liked the idea of playing queens, anyway.” Eight years after the film came out, Mirren won an Oscar for playing Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen (2006).

6. The songs were written by Stephen Schwartz, who had written musicals based on biblical material before. One of Schwartz’s earliest hits, of course, was Godspell, which was based on the life and teachings of Jesus and was turned into a film in 1973. Schwartz also wrote Children of Eden (my review), a musical about Creation and the Flood that was first performed on stage in 1991.

7. The studio solicited input from Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders. On the DVD commentary, the directors talk about how they wanted Moses to come to Miriam’s defense in the scene where the Egyptian taskmaster is killed, to make the scene more “personal” — but rabbis from across the Jewish theological spectrum objected that Moses needed to act in defense of a random stranger to underscore his growing attachment to the Hebrew people as a whole. If memory serves, the climactic song, now called ‘When You Believe’, was also changed from its original title ‘If You Believe’ after Christian consultants objected to the implicit idea that humans, rather than God, can make miracles happen. The film concludes with a title card that has quotes about Moses from the Jewish, Christian and Muslim scriptures.

8. The movie had three “soundtrack” albums. One of them consisted of music from the actual film, another consisted of “Nashville” artists singing songs inspired by the film, and the third consisted of “Inspirational” tracks inspired by the film. This was not the first film overseen by Katzenberg to get three music tie-ins; the Warren Beatty version of Dick Tracy (1990), produced by Disney when Katzenberg was in charge of both live-action and animated films there, spawned a Danny Elfman score, a various-artists compilation album, and the Madonna album I’m Breathless.

9. There was also a fourth CD that you could only get as part of a Wal-Mart promotional package. This fourth disc was, for the most part, a sampler of tracks from all three of the widely available soundtrack albums, but it also included sections of the Hans Zimmer score that were not included on any of those discs. True story: when I finally got my hands on a copy of the Wal-Mart disc, I created a new disc that included all of the music from the film, arranged in the proper narrative sequence — I even split one of the tracks in two because it included music from two different parts of the movie — and when I toyed with the possibility of uploading the track list to an online CD database, I discovered that someone else had already done that. That’s right, there are other obsessive movie-soundtrack fans out there just like me!

10. The Prince of Egypt was, for a short while, the top-grossing non-Disney animated movie ever. It was not quite the first non-Disney cartoon to gross over $100 million in North America — that honour goes to The Rugrats Movie (1998), which came out a few weeks earlier — but The Prince of Egypt eventually inched ahead of that film and held the top non-Disney spot until another DreamWorks release, the stop-motion Chicken Run, came out in 2000.

11. The film had a straight-to-video “prequel”. Like a lot of major animated features, The Prince of Egypt spawned a video-only follow-up, but instead of a sequel featuring the same characters, it was a sort-of prequel that showed how the Hebrews ended up in Egypt in the first place, called Joseph, King of Dreams (2000). The part of Joseph — the boy with the coat of many colours — was voiced by Ben Affleck, and his brother Judah was voiced by Mark Hamill, whose credits include everything from the Star Wars films to the voice of the Joker in the animated Batman series.

12. A few of the people involved have gone on to other Bible-themed projects. Val Kilmer, who provides the voice of Moses, went on to star in a stage production of The Ten Commandments: The Musical (2004). (Despite mentioning the DVD edition of the musical at this blog seven years ago, I have still never actually watched it, myself.) Ralph Fiennes, who provides the voice of the Pharaoh Rameses, went on to provide the voice of Jesus for The Miracle Maker (2000). Screenwriter LaZebnik is now attached to an animated version of Noah’s Ark. And composer Hans Zimmer went on to score The Da Vinci Code (2006), which had a quasi-biblical flashback or two, as well as this year’s mini-series The Bible (2013).

Previous Post

December 18, 2013

The Bible sequel A.D. gets the green light for spring 2015

Next Post

December 20, 2013 Bible epics -- the article's up!

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Anglican Planet Articles BC Christian News BC Report Bible Movies Bible Review Blog Books & Culture Campus Times CBC Radio Christianity Today ChristianWeek Essays Faith Today Festival Cinemas Guide Film Journals Georgia Straight Interviews MB Herald National Catholic Register Salvationist Today's Christian Two Chairs Ubyssey Uncategorized Vancouver Courier Vancouver Sun

Select a Month August 2025 April 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 May 2024 February 2024 December 2023 May 2023 March 2023 November 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 September 2019 July 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 April 2012 January 2012 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 November 2003 October 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 March 2002 January 2002 December 2001 November 2001 September 2001 August 2001 July 2001 June 2001 April 2001 March 2001 February 2001 December 2000 November 2000 October 2000 September 2000 August 2000 July 2000 June 2000 May 2000 April 2000 March 2000 January 2000 October 1999 August 1999 May 1999 April 1999 February 1999 January 1999 December 1998 November 1998 October 1998 August 1998 July 1998 June 1998 April 1998 March 1998 January 1998 November 1997 September 1997 July 1997 June 1997 April 1997 March 1997 February 1997 January 1997 December 1996 October 1996 September 1996 June 1996 March 1996 February 1996 January 1996 April 1995 November 1994 September 1994 September 1991

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which chapter of Genesis recounts the genealogy from Adam to Noah?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Genesis 7 Genesis 2 Genesis 10 Genesis 5