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The first of these films, originally scheduled for release in Thanksgiving of 1998 but not actually released until 18 December, was The Prince of Egypt. It contained songs with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, and a score by the ubiquitous Hans Zimmer, the head of music for DreamWorks. It starred Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes and Michelle Pfeiffer.
The second DreamWorks film, initially scheduled for release on 19 November 1999, was El Dorado. Tim Rice and Elton John were originally asked near the end of 1996 to write 7 songs for the film, which they began work on almost immediately. By mid-February 1999, as the Songs From Aida album was about to hit the stores, the press announced that 10 songs had just been completed and that the film's release date was March 2000. The first title for the film was to be El Dorado : City Of Gold, but then The Road To El Dorado and Gold & Glory : The Road To El Dorado were in the running as well. In the end, The Road To El Dorado won out.
The advertising for El Dorado began with the DVD for release of The Prince of Egypt which contained a commercial for El Dorado.
The soundtrack to El Dorado, officially titled Elton John's The Road To El Dorado, differed from usual film soundtracks in that it contained songs both featured in the movie and those not, all of which although themed around El Dorado are able to be taken as capable of standing on their own. Elton John sings all of the songs except for the three instrumental excerpts from the score. With the exception of the Elton John / Randy Newman duet "It's Tough To Be A God", which is their version of a song sung by the characters in El Dorado, the fourteen tracks are divided into four groups -- those which are the songs sung by Elton John used in the film ("El Dorado", "Without Question", "Friends Never Say Goodbye", "The Trail We Blaze", "Someday Out Of The Blue"), songs written for the film but not used ("16th Century Man", "Trust Me", "Queen of Cities"), songs written for the album ("The Panic In Me", "My Heart Dances"), and exerpts from the film's score (Hans Zimmer's "Cheldorado" & "The Brig", and John Powell's "Wonders Of The New World"). The album was released on DreamWorks Records 14 March 2000.
"Someday Out Of The Blue" was released to radio stations in February and entered Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart at number 24 on 4 March 2000. It stayed on the charts for circa 30 weeks, climbing as high as number 5. "Someday Out Of The Blue" entered the 22 April 2000 Billboard Hot 100 at 56, and that week's Hot 100 Singles Sales chart at 22. Elton John's The Road To El Dorado entered the Billboard 200 1 April 2000 chart at 105. "Friends Never Say Goodbye" was released to the US radio stations the first week of July 2000. It entered the Billboard Adult Contemporary Chart on 11 September 2000.
On 17 February 2000, during a radio industry conference in San Francisco, Elton John gave a special performance where he sang about half a dozen songs from El Dorado. The concert was recorded by VH-1 and was aired as part of their Behind The Music series on Sunday, 19 March 2000. On 22 March 2000, Elton was on the Rosie O'Donnell Show discussing the film and sang "Someday Out Of The Blue", he also sang "I Know The Truth" from Aida which was opening the next day. HBO aired a special on "The Making Of ElDorado" on 27 March 2000.
El Dorado opened on 31 March 2000, after having had its premiere a few days earlier in Los Angeles. The movie came in second at the box office for its first week. El Dorado was released in the UK 4 August 2000 after a preview on 30 July 2000. The film was commercially released in the US on 12 December 2000.
The El Dorado pages were last updated 27.1.07 |
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