Trailer
Plot summary
Oscar, a bluestreak cleaner wrasse, works at the Whale Wash in the Southside Reef and owes money to his boss, a pufferfish named Mr. Sykes. His friend Angie, an angelfish, hands him a pearl she got from her grandmother so he can pawn it and settle the debt. Oscar loses the money betting on a seahorse at a race, and Sykes sends his jellyfish henchmen to punish him. Don Lino, a great white who runs a shark mob, is unhappy that his son Lenny eats no meat.
Cast
Show all 20 cast
- Emily Lyon Seganas Shortie #3 (voice)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Shark Tale (2004)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- James Gandolfini was initially set to voice the kingpin shark Don Lino, and Robert De Niro took over the role when Gandolfini later dropped out.
- By September 2003 the film had been retitled Shark Tale to make it sound less violent and more family-friendly; producer Bill Damaschke explained that at the beginning they had set out to make a movie a little more noir, a little darker than where they landed.
- Shark Tale was initially scheduled for release on November 5, 2004, but was moved up to October 1, reportedly to avoid competition with Pixar's The Incredibles, which came out on the same weekend.
- Its Venice Film Festival screening marked the first time Piazza San Marco was closed for the premiere of a major feature film, with the film projected on the largest inflatable screen in the world, over six stories tall and needing 20,000 cubic feet of air and more than 50 tons of water to stabilise.
- John Mancini, founder of the Italic Institute of America, protested that preteens “only know Italians as gangsters” and that the goal was to de-Italianize the film; DreamWorks reacted by changing the name of Peter Falk's character from Don Brizzi to Don Feinberg.
- Many have read Lenny, the shark mocked by the “alpha male” types in his family for refusing to eat seafood, as an allegory for homophobia and self-acceptance; the American Family Association suggested it was designed to “brainwash” children into supporting gay rights.
