An idea Disney passed on became DreamWorks' first hand-drawn feature
Jeffrey Katzenberg kept pitching an animated version of The Ten Commandments while at Disney. Once he co-founded DreamWorks in 1994, he made it himself. The Prince of Egypt, the studio's first traditionally animated film, earned $218 million and won an Oscar for When You Believe.
Released in 1998, the film retells the Book of Exodus through Moses, who grows up as an Egyptian prince before being called by God to lead the Hebrews to freedom. Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner and Simon Wells shared directing duties, Philip LaZebnik wrote the screenplay, Stephen Schwartz wrote the songs and Hans Zimmer composed the score. Val Kilmer and Ralph Fiennes head a voice cast that also includes Michelle Pfeiffer and Patrick Stewart.
Katzenberg staffed the project with animators from Walt Disney Feature Animation and Amblimation, building a crew of 350 people drawn from 34 countries. Amblimation had shut in 1997, so this became the first film animated entirely at DreamWorks' own Glendale studio. Tools supplied by Toon Boom Technologies and Silicon Graphics let the team mix hand-drawn work with computer-generated imagery.
The story begins with Pharaoh Seti ordering the killing of Hebrew newborn boys. Yocheved sets her infant adrift on the Nile, and Queen Tuya adopts him and names him Moses. He grows up as the brother of Rameses, heir to the throne, until his sister Miriam jogs his memory with their mother's lullaby. After accidentally causing an Egyptian slave driver's death, Moses flees into the desert, marries Tzipporah in Midian and hears God speak from a burning bush.
The film opened in cinemas on December 18, 1998, two days after its Royce Hall premiere. Critics admired its visuals, music and voice acting, and it became the most successful animated feature not made by Disney up to that point. The pop version of When You Believe, sung by Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, was a hit single, and its Academy Award made this the first DreamWorks Animation film to win an Oscar. It also shared the first Critics' Choice award for animated feature with Pixar's A Bug's Life, and it later spawned a video prequel and a West End stage musical in 2020.
Source: The Prince of Egypt
