Shark Tale

In the Southside Reef, a lowly bluestreak cleaner wrasse named Oscar fantasizes about being rich and famous. Soon after arriving for work at the Whale Wash, he is called to the office of his boss, a pufferfish named Sykes, to discuss the fact that he owes a large sum of money and must pay it back by the next day. He remembers being humiliated as a child because his father was a tongue scrubber, so his angelfish friend, Angie, offers him a shiny pink pearl that was a gift from her grandmother to pawn and pay his debt. Oscar brings the money to the race track to meet Sykes, but hears that the race is rigged and bets it all on a seahorse named "Lucky Day". A lionfish named Lola sees this and flagrantly seduces an excited Oscar. Sykes is annoyed that Oscar bet the money but agrees to see how the race turns out. When the race start, Lucky Day's door had been blocked (revealing that the rigging was against him), but then Lucky Day smash the door and catch up his delay. Moments before Lucky Day crosses the finish line, he trips and loses.

Meanwhile, a family of criminally-inclined sharks which has associates such as killer whales, swordfish, and octopuses has a problem with one of their sons, Lenny, who is a vegetarian and refuses to act the part of a killer. His crime lord father, Don Edward Lino, orders his violent eldest son, Frankie, to mentor his brother in the family business. Frankie sees Oscar left for dead in the middle of the ocean by Sykes' two Jamaican jellyfish henchmen, Ernie and Bernie, and urges Lenny to eat Oscar, but Lenny instead frees Oscar and tells him to escape. Furious, Frankie charges at Oscar, but suddenly an anchor falls on him, killing him. Devastated over his brother's demise, Lenny flees. As there were no other witnesses and Oscar was seen near the body, everyone in the reef comes to believe that he killed Frankie, an opportunity that Oscar decides to exploit for fame.

Oscar returns to the reef with a new title of "Sharkslayer". Sykes becomes his manager, he also forgives the debt that Oscar had with him, and Oscar moves to the "top of the reef" to live in luxury. At the same time, Don Lino has everyone search for Lenny and Oscar. When several sharks approach Oscar's neighborhood, his neighbors expect him to drive them away so he goes out and encounters Lenny. Since he does not wish to return home and face his father, Lenny begs Oscar to let him stay at Oscar's house. Soon, Angie finds out about Oscar's lie and threatens to tell everyone. Oscar and Lenny stage an event in which Lenny pretends to terrorize the town and Oscar kills him. Though this further cements Oscar's popularity and causes Lola to become his girlfriend, while infuriating Don Lino. Afterwards, Oscar and an angered Angie get into an argument, where she reveals that she had feelings for Oscar even before he became the "Sharkslayer", causing Oscar to dump Lola and reflect on the consequences of his selfishness. Lola then beats Oscar up in anger.

Soon, Oscar buys some gifts for Angie, only to discover that Don Lino has kidnapped her in order to stage a meeting. Lenny attends disguised as a dolphin named Sebastian. Don Lino threatens to eat Angie if Oscar does not comply. Lenny grabs Angie into his mouth (in order for Oscar to intimidate the sharks), but then regurgitates her and unintentionally reveals himself in front of everyone. Enraged, Don Lino chases Oscar through the reef. Oscar heads for the Whale Wash and ends up trapping Don Lino and accidentally trapping Lenny in the machinery. Oscar is given an ovation by everyone, but he finally confesses the truth behind Frankie's death. He then tells Don Lino that everyone likes Lenny for who he is and urges him to respect everyone's individual choices. Inspired by Oscar's confession, Don Lino reconciles with his son accepting him for who he is and states that he and his gang bear the city no ill will. Oscar forsakes all the wealth he has acquired, makes peace with the sharks, becomes co-manager of the Whale Wash, now frequented by sharks, killer whales, and swordfish, and lives happily ever after with Angie.

In the mid-credits, Lola shows up at Oscar's apartment to apologize only to encounter Crazy Joe, Oscar's eccentric hermit crab neighbor.

• Will Smith as Oscar, a comical street wise bluestreak cleaner wrasse who works in the Whale Wash of Reef City who wants to be rich, but his schemes always fail and he ends up in-debt to his boss with five thousand clams.
• Robert De Niro as Don Lino, a shark and leader of a mob consisting of criminally-inclined great white sharks, who wants his two sons to take over his business and run it together, but becomes enraged when Oscar inadvertently gets in the way following one of his sons' death. James Gandolfini was originally set to voice the character, but had to drop out.[3][4]
• Renée Zellweger as Angie, Oscar's angelfish best friend and colleague. Angie eventually becomes Oscar's girlfriend.
• Jack Black as Lenny, Don Lino's youngest son, who is a vegetarian, younger brother of Frankie and becomes good friends with Oscar.
• Angelina Jolie as Lola, a seductive female lionfish whom Oscar develops a romantic interest in. She only cares about money, calling herself superficial, and she is shown slamming Oscar into the windows.
• Martin Scorsese as Sykes, the pufferfish owner of the Whale Wash and a loan shark to whom Oscar owes five thousand clams. He once worked with Don Lino, but was fired and called in his debts to pay off the gangster.
• Ziggy Marley and Doug E. Doug as Ernie and Bernie, two Jamaican jellyfish and Sykes' enforcers, who enjoy torturing Oscar with their painful stingers when he is in trouble with their boss.
• Michael Imperioli as Frankie, Lenny's older brother and Don Lino's eldest and more vicious son, who is embarrassed of Lenny's vegetarian views. Frankie is killed after an anchor accidentally hits him.
• Vincent Pastore as Luca, Don Lino's green octopus "left-hand, right-hand man", with a tendency to state the obvious much to Lino's frustration.
• Peter Falk as Don Feinberg, an elderly leopard shark and leader of a mob of criminally-inclined leopard sharks, who is a friend of Don Lino.
• Katie Couric as Katie Current, the local reporter of Southside Reef in the U.S. release. At the time, Katie Couric co-hosted Today in America.[5] In the Australian release, then local Today co-host Tracy Grimshaw dubbed the lines.[5] Fiona Phillips of the UK's GMTV performed the voice for the British release of the film.[6] Cristina Parodi of Italy's Verissimo provided the Italian version of the character.[7]
• David P. Smith as Crazy Joe, a deranged hermit crab who is Oscar's friend. He lives in a dumpster near the Whale Wash.
• David Soren as Shrimp, a shrimp who fears being eaten by a shark and is an enemy to Don Lino.
• Bobb'e J. Thompson as Shortie #1
• Phil LaMarr as Prawn Shop Owner

The film was originally developed under the title of Sharkslayer.[8] By September 2003, it had been retitled Shark Tale, to make the title sound less violent and more family friendly.[9][10] Bill Damaschke, the producer of the film, explained the change of the title: "We set out to make a movie a little more noir, perhaps a little darker than where we've landed."[11] In April 2002, production officially began.[3]

The film was produced concurrently with Finding Nemo, another animated film set underwater, which was released a year and a half before Shark Tale. DreamWorks Animation's CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg, defended the film, saying that "any similarities are mere coincidence. We've been open with the Pixar people so we don't step on each other's toes."[4]

The Piazza San Marco in Venice a day before the film's world premiere, where it was projected on the world's largest inflatable movie screen.

Shark Tale was originally scheduled to be released on November 5, 2004, but was moved up to October 1, 2004 in order to avoid competition with Disney/Pixar's The Incredibles.[12] The film had its worldwide premiere on September 10, 2004 in Piazza San Marco in Venice, Italy.[13] Screening as part of the Venice Film Festival, it marked the first time that Piazza San Marco was closed for a premiere of a major feature film.[13] The film was projected on the largest inflatable screen in the world, measuring more than six stories tall and over 3,900 square feet (360 m²). It required 20,000 cubic feet (570 m³) of air to inflate and more than 50 tons of water for stabilization.[13] The premiere was attended by 6,000 visitors,[14] including Will Smith, Angelina Jolie, Robert De Niro, and Michael Imperioli.[13] Jeffrey Katzenberg, the executive producer of the film, explained that they "wanted to find a unique way to introduce this movie to the world. We needed a big idea. … More than anything, we are in showbusiness. This is the show part."[14]

Shark Tale: Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on September 21, 2004. The soundtrack features newly recorded music by various artists, including Justin Timberlake, Sean Paul, Timbaland, Christina Aguilera, JoJo, Ludacris, Mary J. Blige, and The Pussycat Dolls, as well as the film's closing theme composed by Hans Zimmer.

Janet Jackson and Beyoncé initially planned to record a duet for the film's soundtrack. Jackson's frequent collaborator Jimmy Jam, who had recently worked with Beyoncé for The Fighting Temptations soundtrack, commented "Obviously we'd love to have the involvement of Janet and Beyonce, who we just worked with on Fighting Temptations. They've already expressed interest", adding "There are a lot of opportunities with an animated piece to work with some different people."[42] Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation, had appointed Jackson's producers Jam & Lewis to be involved with the soundtrack, though the duo only ended up producing only one song for the film, with Jam saying "We worked for DreamWorks before on the Bryan Adams song for Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and the Boyz II Men tune for The Prince of Egypt, and Katzenberg is a fan of what we do. He thought we would be perfect to do the music for Shark Tale."[42]

A video game based on the film was released on September 29, 2004 for Microsoft Windows, Xbox, GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Game Boy Advance.[43] Published by Activision, Edge of Reality developed the console versions of the game, while Vicarious Visions developed the Game Boy Advance version, and Amaze Entertainment developed the Microsoft Windows version.[43] The cast from the film did not reprise their roles in the game.

In April 2011, DreamWorks Animation's CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg, commented that the studio did not have plans to produce future movie genre parodies like Shark Tale, Monsters vs. Aliens, and Megamind, saying that these films "all shared an approach and tone and idea of parody, and did not travel well internationally. We don't have anything like that coming on our schedule now."[44]

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• Official website
• Official website
• Shark Tale at IMDb
• Shark Tale at The Big Cartoon DataBase
• Shark Tale at AllMovie
• Shark Tale at Box Office Mojo