Mystica is a 2004 American computer-animated fantasy comedy film produced by Amblin Animation and released by Universal Pictures. The film was directed by Tony Bandcroft and co-directed by David Silverman, written by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Peter Ackerman and Rob Schrab from a story by Ralph Zondag, Jeff Snow and Jennifer Brady, and stars the voices of Mandy Moore, Jesse McCartney, Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Christine Baranski, Paul Giamatti and Sarah Michelle Gellar. Set in a modern day-like fantasy world, the film follows two unlikely people, a young brave girl and a shape-shifting boy who go on a faithful to save and restore Mystica from an ancient evil that threatens to engulf the entire land.
Mystica premiered at the Fox Village Theater on February 15, 2004, and was theatrically released in the United States on February 27, 2004. It received universal acclaim from critics and was a box office success, grossing $587 million worldwide on its $58 million budget, making it the sixth highest-grossing film of 2004. The film won the 2004 Annie Award for Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production for Banks, and was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, but lost to The Incredibles. Mystica saw a 3D re-release in theaters on May 16, 2014 to celebrate its 10th anniversary. The film's success helped spawn an expanded franchise, with three sequels — Mystica II (2007), Mystica III (2010), and Mystica: The Final Enigma (2018) — a holiday special, several short films, theme park attractions, and two television spin-offs.
In 2023, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress deeming it "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."
Plot[]
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Cast[]
- Mandy Moore as Mila
- Jesse McCartney as Orion
- Paul Rudd
- Elizabeth Banks
- Christine Baranski as Lady Naima
- Paul Giamatti as King Ruth
- Sarah Michelle Gellar
Additional voices[]
Coming soon!
Production[]
Development[]
Jennifer Brady came up with the concept for Mystica in 1997 during the production of 1998's To My Guest. At the beginning of production, Zondag began work on the film with Tony Bandcroft, who had just wrapped up work on Disney's Mulan, in 1998, shortly after the release of To My Guest. By late 1998, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio had drafted a treatment with Bandcroft that bore some resemblance to the final film. Brady pitched the story to Steven Spielberg at Amblin Entertainment in January 1999. She and her story team left with some suggestions in hand and returned to pitch a refined version of the story in March.
The film was originally developed under the working title of "Myths", but it was changed. By October 2000, Amblin revealed the film's title to be Mystica, then planned for a fall 2003 release. In addition, it would be animated with computer-animation, rather than traditional hand-drawn animation that had been done with Amblin's previous films, with visual effects company Blur Studio would produce the project due to success of three Pixar films, Toy Story, A Bug's Life and Toy Story 2.
By February 2001, PDI producer Brad Lewis was brought in to produce the film. By November 2001, Elliott and Rossio were fighting constantly with Spielberg, about how the film's humor and how it should work in the script. Spielberg refused to be intimidated by Bandcroft and had an argument with him how much should the film appeal to adults and young teenagers, similar in tone to DreamWorks' Shrek, which became a huge success at the American box office. Bandcroft wanted both audiences, but he deemed some of Spielberg's ideas, such as adding adult jokes and classic rock music to the soundtrack, which was deemed to be too outrageous. By June 2004, Bandcroft brought in Karey Kirkpatrick to rewrite some of the film's script, to help emphasize a funnier and more action-packed tone. Reiss noted, "50 percent of the things (in the third draft of the script)—based on where we were ten weeks ago—are no longer in the movie." One idea was to have Orion accidentally get him and Mila lost, which was featured on the DVD. Annie McCarty and Brenda Chapman worked as creative consultants on the film.
Casting[]
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Animation[]
Animation production on Mystica began on early February 2002 at Blur Studio in Culver City, California, with more than 150 animators involved in the project. Spielberg selected 50 percent of the new CGI animation team from Amblin's 2D animation staff and placed them through a rigorous training program, which included an introductory to Alias's Maya that would serve as the main 3D animation software used on the project.
More coming soon!
Production wrapped on December 27, 2003.
Music[]
Coming soon!
Release[]
Mystica was originally set to be released worldwide in November 2003, but it was moved up a year later to avoid competition with other films during the fall season. Mystica was released in theaters on February 27, 2004, in the United States and Canada. The film was rated PG by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) for "some rude humor". After the success of the 3D re-release of Jurassic Park, Universal re-released Mystica in 3D on May 16, 2014 for its 10th anniversary of the film. On March 1, 2019, Universal and IMAX announced that the film would be reissued and digitally re-mastered for IMAX theaters (alongside its sequels, Mystica II, Mystica III, and Mystica: The Final Enigma) using their DMR Technology in a quadruple feature for a one-day only, "Fan Event", on May 1. The film was theatrically re-released in the United States for one week beginning on February 23, 2024 in celebration of its twentieth anniversary.
Marketing[]
The film's teaser trailer was released on April 3, 2003 and was attached into High School Noir a day later. It depicts a scene where Orion having a Disney parody fantasy while Mila tried to prepared him for their quest. This scene was not present in the final film release. Another teaser trailer was released on July 1, 2003 and was attached into Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas a day later. The film's official trailer was released on November 14, 2003, and was attached to Looney Tunes: Back in Action, The Cat in the Hat, and Adyora Focus 2.
Universal partnered the film with licensing and promotional partners valued at $80 million for the marketing campaign. Burger King promoted the film with a set of 8 kids' meal toys featuring the characters from the film. Additional marketing partners for the film included General Mills, Krispy Kreme, Baskin-Robbins, Pepsi, Ad Council, MasterCard, Best Buy, Dodge, THX, and Kodak.
Video game[]
A video game based on the film was released in North America on February 11, 2004, for PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, and Game Boy Advance. It was published by Vivendi Universal Games and developed by Traveller's Tales for the console versions and was ported by Vicarious Visions for GBA. Upon release, the game received a mixed to positive reception.
Home media[]
Mystica was released by Universal Studios Home Entertainment on VHS and DVD on June 15, 2004. Both releases included a 5-minute short film titled Shape-Shift Problem, which takes place after the events of the film. The film was the best-selling DVD in its initial week of release, selling over 500,000 copies and making over $16.9 million. It was also released on Game Boy Advance Video in October 2005 and on UMD for the Sony PSP. It was later released on Blu-ray in North America on July 22, 2008. Another Blu-ray release from Universal for the film was released on June 5, 2012, as a part of Universal's Universal 100th Anniversary releases. It was later released on Blu-ray 3D on August 12, 2014. A 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray version was released on February 26, 2019.
Reception[]
Coming soon!
Sequels[]
Coming soon!
Transcripts[]
Main[]
To see the main transcript of the film, click here.
Trailers[]
To see the transcript for the trailers of the film, click here.