The Pagemaster (1994) on Netflix
G19941h 20mAdventureAnimationComedy
Ten-year-old Richard Tyler fears everything and lives by accident statistics. Sent to buy nails, he shelters from a storm in a library, where librarian Mr. Dewey says he needs a particular book.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.2/1028,260 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes19%
Trailer
Plot summary
Richard Tyler, ten years old, fears everything and rules his days with statistics. When his father sends him to buy nails, a thunderstorm drives him into a library, where the librarian Mr. Dewey gives him a library card. Looking for a phone, Richard finds a rotunda painted with characters from famous books and, slipping on water from his coat, is knocked out. He wakes as the painted art melts and pours over him and the library, turning both into illustrations. The Pagemaster directs him into the fiction section, where a green exit sign glows. There he meets three talking books, Adventure, Fantasy and Horror, who agree to help only if he checks them out on his new card.
Cast
Show all 20 cast
- Fernando Escandonas Pirate (voice)
- Alexis Kirschneras Neighborhood Kid
- Jessica Kirschneras Neighborhood Kid
- Guy Manskeras Neighborhood Kid
- Brandon S. McKayas Neighborhood Kid (as Brandon McKay)
- Stephen Sheehanas Neighborhood Kid
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Pagemaster (1994)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- After a lengthy investigation that included interviews with three people inside producer David Kirschner's own office, the Writers Guild of America credit arbitration determined that David Casci was the primary writer, and that Kirschner had not contributed enough to the writing to warrant any screenwriting credit.
- Once the Writers Guild ruled against him, Fox threatened to pull out of arbitration and release the film without WGA-approved credits, which would have forced the Guild to file an injunction blocking the film's heavily promoted Christmas season release.
- Director Joe Johnston was so unhappy that the finished film was re-edited without his input that he later removed The Pagemaster from his own résumé.
- The Pagemaster was the last 20th Century Fox animated feature made with traditional hand-painted animation cels, a technique the studio dropped for good with its next animated film, Anastasia.
- Leonard Nimoy and Frank Welker had already co-starred together in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and The Transformers: The Movie before teaming up again here, and they would reunite once more 17 years later in Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
- Macaulay Culkin received a Golden Raspberry nomination for Worst Actor for his role in the film, though he lost to Kevin Costner for Wyatt Earp.
- Every fictional work that appears in the film was created and first published before January 1, 1923, which put them all in the public domain in most countries and left the production free to use them.
