The Trumpet of the Swan (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Trumpet of the Swan
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Richard Rich Terry L. Noss
Written by	Judy Rothman Rofé E.B. White
Starring	Reese Witherspoon Jason Alexander Seth Green Carol Burnett Mary Steenburgen
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release date(s)	May 11, 2001 (limited)
Running time	75 minutes
Country	America
Language	English
IMDb profile

This article is about the animated film. For the children's novel, see The Trumpet of the Swan.

The Trumpet of the Swan is a 2001 animated film produced by RichCrest Animation Studios, directed by Richard Rich, and distributed by TriStar Pictures, being TriStar's first animated film ever since 1988's Pound Puppies and the Legend of Big Paw. It is loosely based on the popular children's book by E. B. White. It tells the story of a young Trumpeter Swan who is born without a voice and is vying for the attention of a beautiful pen named Serena. He overcomes this by learning to play the trumpet. It stars the voices of Reese Witherspoon, Jason Alexander, Seth Green, Carol Burnett, Joe Mantegna and Mary Steenburgen.

It was not well received by critics. Many stated the animation was poor, that the charm of the original book was lost, the characters were dull, the casting did not match, the songs were unmemorable and that the character design was awful. But the most common criticism of the film version was that it did not follow the original story well. This disappointed many fans of the book. On Rotten Tomatoes, it scored 13% rotten on the tomato-meter. It failed to get an audience at the box office, for two reasons, A small limited release, and the release of the Shrek the following week would cause the film to lose most of its audience.

In 2001, it was nominated by the Casting Society of America for best voice-casting in an animated film, but lost the award to Disney-backed The Emperor's New Groove. It is notable, however, that an independent animated film would be able to win such a nomination. It was the last film based on a book by E. B. White until 2006's Charlotte's Web.