SHARK TALE - Overview, Argument, & Position Summary

Currently in production at DreamWorks Pictures, and scheduled for release in October, 2004, Shark Tale is a computer-animated, children's film that, as DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg crows with unabashed pride, will be an amalgam of "...everything from The Untouchables to Some Like It Hot to all three Godfather films." The story's venue is a fictitious undersea world populated by anthropomorphic fish - not unlike Disney's Little Mermaid (1989), but with an exceptionally sordid twist. Like a perverse kiddie morality play, Shark Tale relates the unhappy results of one unlucky sea creature's involvement with the under-the-sea underworld. As viewed in the DreamWorks promos, the maritime mobsters take the form of cartoon sharks. And yes, with names like Don Lino and Don Brizzi, they are given unmistakably Italian American identities. For added 'authenticity', DreamWorks has lined up Robert De Niro, Michael Imperoli, Martin Scorsese, and others who have shamelessly built their personal wealth and fame on the prostrated back of Italic culture, to do the voice-overs.