Dusk and Dawn (original Universal/Amblin version)

Dusk and Dawn was a film that went through numerous changes before finally being released on December 19, 2003. This version would have originally been a traditionally hand-drawn animated feature directed by Phil Nibbelink and William Jennings and produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment through its UK-based Amblimation animation studio and later Universal Feature Animation alongside Geo G.'s Glass Ball Productions for Universal Pictures with the intent to make the film an epic-oriented comedy-drama. The plot was more akin to the William Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet with mystical elements and a musical. Funny, considering that Nibbelink is responsible for his independent animated feature Romeo & Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss, which was released years later in 2006.

Following the closure of Amblimation in early 1997, the film was halted and drastically overhauled by Universal before DreamWorks Animation (which was co-founded by Steven Spielberg and employed by former Amblimation members under Spielberg's direction) picked up the film as a computer-animated feature with co-production by Pacific Data Images of Antz and Shrek fame and made it a success which would spawn a franchise. Ironically, Universal would later purchase the final version of the film through their acquisition of DreamWorks Animation in 2016.

Plot
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Cast
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Production
Early in development at Amblimation in late 1992 during the production of We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, Balto, The Imps of Nature and the now-cancelled Cats, the film was titled Dusk & Dawn, later Dusk and Dawn, with Phil Nibbelink (who created the original pitch the film was based on in the early 1990s while working on An American Tail: Fievel Goes West at the studio) as the film's director and Steve Hickner as producer while Steven Spielberg would serve as executive producer. Geo G., creator of Gabriel Garza and founder of Glass Ball Productions, shortly became involved in the project where he had been assigned to work on the story development as well as the character designs, including the titular protagonists.

The story was intended as a Romeo and Juliet-style story about a representation of dusk till dawn, conceived by Nibbelink. After creating the bible for a franchise of several films, television series, video games, books, merchandising, hotel chain, and theme parks, he later participated in development during the early stages of the production and took the package unsolicited to Universal Pictures where he became the first of several screenwriters on the project.

In July 1993, when Universal Feature Animation opened its doors, founder Michael Wildshill (who, coincidentally, was directing his own animated adaptation of Romeo and Juliet via Multimedia Animation) became interested in the Dusk and Dawn project. In October 1994, Universal Feature Animation announced the project was being directed by Nibbelink and William Jennings with John Cohen and Melissa Hester serving as producers while Wildshill would executive produce.

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Gallery
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Trivia
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