La Route d'Eldorado is the French dub of The Road to El Dorado. There are two versions of the same dub, which the original one released in theaters in Canada on March 31, 2000, and the other in France on October 25.
Confident in the future success of the movie, DreamWorks and UIP in France had initially planned to released this dub fairly close with the release of the original English version in the United States, which would've been March 31, 2000, as they did this tactic for The Prince of Egypt two years prior. Given the timing though, they didn't really have much time to go and look for startalents to book for the dub; something Eric Bergeron, the director of the movie, claims to regret in the film's audio commentary.
The first version of the dub did end up being released in Canada in the same release date as the United States. In theory, nothing should've prevented a European release weeks later, but the film wasn't hugely successful on release. Critics were mixed on the movie, the March release made it too late for the film to be nominated for awards, and it only ended up grossing $50 million on a $95 million budget. Because of this, UIP pushed back the French release by a few months in order to release the movie at a slightly more profitable time, and it ended up releasing during the end of October.
Cast[]
| Character | Actor | ||
|---|---|---|---|
|
Tulio
|
José Garcia | |
| Bruno Choël (original version) | |||
|
Miguel
|
Antoine de Caunes | |
| Vincent Ropion (original version, singing in both versions) | |||
|
Chel
|
Victoria Abril | |
| Barbara Beretta (original version) | |||
|
Tzekel-Kan
|
Féodor Atkine | |
|
Tannabok
|
Jacques Frantz | |
|
Hernán Cortés
|
Richard Darbois | |
|
Zaragoza
|
Saïd Amadis | |
|
L'acolyte
|
Éric Bergeron | |
| Petit garçon | Christophe Peyroux | ||
| Petite fille | Caroline Pascaud-Blandin | ||
| Garde 1 | Paul Borne | ||
| Garde 2 | Lionel Tavera | ||
Narrator
|
Bruno Pelletier | ||
Additional voices
|
Jean-Claude Sachot | ||
| Marc Moro | |||
| Yann Pichon | |||
| Technical staff | |||
Dubbing director
|
Perete Pradier | ||
|---|---|---|---|
Translator
|
Luc Aulivier | ||
Musical Direction
|
Claude Lombard | ||
| Fred Taïeb | |||
Lyricist
|
Bruno Pelletier | ||
Creative supervisor
|
Eric Bergeron | ||
Distributor
|
United International Pictures | ||
Trailers[]
| Character | Actor | ||
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Tulio
|
Emmanuel Curtil (teaser) | |
|
|
Miguel
|
Patrick Poivey (teaser) | |
Music[]
The songs are performed by Bruno Pelletier, who hasn't really had much experience in dubbing, making this his only work in the field as he is an actual musician.
He was on the board during the production of the original version of the dub, but when the slight redub was starting to go into production, the songs were also readapted and redubbed, though according to documentations of the dub, they're still being sung by Bruno Pelletier, with the exception of It's Tough to Be A God.
It's Tough to Be A God was performed by the original cast members in the original version, Bruno Choël and Vincent Ropion. When the redub came, Tulio's lines were redubbed by José Garcia, but Vincent Ropion's lines were intact in the redub.
Notes[]
- Not only was releasing the dub in France on October looking profitable, releasing the movie near the holidays and actually giving it competition as it released a month before Disney's Dinosaur, but it also gave the directors more time to go through and see what was good for casting. The director of the movie had his list of French startalents to cast for the main characters, which include François Cluzet and Lambert Wilson to name a few. Bergeron then decided to redub the movie in French with José Garcia, Antoine de Caunes, and Victoria Abril as the main characters.
- Usually it is the film's distributors that decides on casting, but since the director of the actual movie is French himself, he had the opportunity to decide who voices in the movie.
- It is worth noting that the slight redub was not enough to make the movie a commercial success in France, with only 750,000 admissions in theaters, which was almost 7 times less than Disney's Dinosaur.
- Despite there technically only being one French dub of the movie, the original version is considered by the actual director of the movie to be the Canadian French version, despite none of the dubbers are from Canada with the exception of musician Bruno Pelletier.
- The first theatrical trailer of the movie's dub uses both versions of the movie, where sometimes the main character's voices would switch between the first and second voices.
- It is worth noting that Chel was redubbed by Victoria Abril, a Spanish actress currently based in France since 1982. She uses her Madrid accent in this dub, even though the movie takes place in South America.
- It is also worth noting that none of the other Aztec natives in this movie have accents.