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| Sympathetic, naive characters and colorful animation is promised on this breezy poster for Stefan Fjeldmark, Greg Manwaring, Michael Donovan and Michael Hegner's A Fish Tale |
Fly and his sister and cousin are kids who visit a strange scientist on their improvised fishing trip, but by an accident they are all three transformed into fish. Will they be able to find the antidote to get back out of the ocean within the 48 hour window they have for it?
A Fish Tale is written by Tracy J. Brown (It'll Kill You (1996)), Karsten Kiilerich (Hodja fra Pjort (2018)), John Stefan Olsen (Bølle Bob - Alle Tiders Helt (2010)) and co-writer/director Stefan Fjeldmark (Jungle Jack/Jungledyret (1993)), who co-directed with Greg Manwaring (Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988, animator)); with Michael Donovan (Superbook (2011, TV-series)) and Michael Hegner (The Ugly Duckling and Me!/Den Grimme Ælling og Mig (2006)) contributing voice direction. The original Danish title, Hjælp, Jeg Er en Fisk, translates to 'Help, I'm a Fish', which was the film's title in the UK, (where the film flopped.)
As a rare occurrence, a major non-American animation (it is a Danish-German-Irish co-production), the film is a deeply impressive production, which almost reaches the Disney level in terms of animation; perhaps more accurately A Fish Tale meets Disney's level 5 years prior to its release.
There's strong characters, including Alan Rickman's (Bob Roberts (1992)) teeth-cleaning pilot fish villain, good songs and a positive adventure feel and sensible joy about the art of storytelling at work.
The original and somewhat bizarre plot winds up idealizing science somewhat naively, and the playing time could have gone longer, as some clear opportunities for the story are missed due to budgetary reasons or perhaps inexperience. But the general impression with A Fish Tale is nonetheless that of a broadly appealing, handsome and warm family experience.
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 101 - 106 mil. DKK (different reports), or approximately 18 mil. $
Box office: Approximately 9.1 mil. $ - some uncertainty
= Huge flop (returned approximately 0.50 times its cost)
[A Fish Tale was released 6 October (Denmark) and runs 82 minutes. Parts of the production were outsourced to Germany and Ireland to exploit tax credits offered in the co-producing countries. The film sold 355,449 tickets in Denmark, becoming the year's top-grossing local film in the market. It opened #50 to a 57k $ first weekend in 34 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #43, never widening in terms of screens, and grossed 563k $. The film's biggest market must have been main production country Denmark, in which its admission number comes to approximately 3.6 mil. $ (39.6 % of the total gross) - a number missing from the film's official Box Office Mojo site. The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Germany with 2.6 mil. $ (28.6 %) and the Netherlands with 1 mil. $ (11 %). The film was nominated for 6 Robert awards (Denmark's Oscar) and 1 German Film award. Fjeldmark returned with Terkel i Knibe (2004); Manwaring with Dragon's Rock (2004, TV-series), The School for Vampires (2006, TV-series) and theatrically with Little Big Panda (2011). 5,762 IMDb users have given A Fish Tale a 5.9/10 average rating.]
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