Arlene: The Story Begins

***Arlene: The Story Begins*** is a 1999 American animated fantasy comedy film produced by Nickelodeon Movies and ClearWorld Entertainment. It was directed by Thalia Ward from a screenplay by Tianna Hopes and David N. Weiss and a story by Ward, Hopes, and Kyler Fischer, and stars the voices of Brittany Murphy, Andrea Libman, Will Ferrell, Hank Azaria, Hugh Jackman, and Robin Williams. The film centers on a young girl named Arlene, who must goes on the quest to stop an evil king from ruling the town and the world.

*Arlene: The Story Begins* was originally conceived by Ward and Hopes in the 1970s while working at Hanna-Barbera. ClearWorld was approached by Paramount Pictures to produce an animated feature film in 1986. With its original draft completely different from its final version, *Arlene* initially began pre-production in May 1987 for release in Thanksgiving 1989. It was later abandoned by ClearWorld in early 1988, but restarted production on the film for a 1999 release, with the script being rewritten.

*Arlene: The Story Begins* was originally released on May 14, 1999 to positive reviews from critics, who praised its animation, characters, music, and voice acting. It was a success at the box office, earning over $452 million worldwide on its $45 million budget. The film later spawned an expanded franchise, with three sequels; *Arlene: The Second Part* (2004), *Arlene: The Rise of Good & Evil* (2007), and *Arlene: The Final Part* (2013).

## Cast

* Brittany Murphy as Arlene
* Andrea Libman as Tina

*More coming soon!*

## Production

### Development

The idea of *Arlene: The Story Begins* was originally conceived by animators Thalia Ward and Tianna Hopes in the 1970s while working at Hanna-Barbera before their newly-formed animation studio Thalia Ward Productions was separated from Hanna-Barbera and renamed as ClearWorld Entertainment in 1988; they always wanted to realize their dream of producing an animated feature-length film. Ward then came up with the story of the film, which was about a girl who attempts to save her world from the mad king.

After the success of ClearWorld's short film *The Beauty Visitor* in 1986, the studio was approached by Paramount Pictures to produce an animated feature film that would become *Arlene*, an offer which the founders immediately accepted. The deal was settled in May 1988, and Ward and Hopes, along with fellow ClearWorld animator Kyler Fischer, began working on the script of *Arlene*. The original draft was completely different from the final version of the film.

However, development for *Arlene* was stalled in February 1989 when Paramount and ClearWorld became concerned over the upcoming release of the 1989 animated films, Disney's *The Little Mermaid* and Don Bluth's *All Dogs Go to Heaven* (which were both released on the same day). ClearWorld abandoned *Arlene* in March 1989 after the studio had already designed six months worth pre-production and Paramount had left the project. The studio then decided to start work on other projects, such as the television series *Alaina Gleen* to be aired on CBS in the same month.

With the success of *Alaina Gleen*, ClearWorld began concerning their interest in restarting development on *Arlene* in late 1995 and retitled *Arlene: The Story Began*. ClearWorld chose to pitch the film to Nickelodeon due to the network's success with *Charity the Wicked Witch*. The following year, ClearWorld and Nickelodeon revived the project and the staff brought David N. Weiss on to help rewrite their 1989 script. The network's theatrical motion picture production arm Nickelodeon Movies was brought in to co-produced the film with ClearWorld. Paramount then returned to the film in 1996.

### Animation

The animation was provided by ClearWorld Entertainment under the leadership of animation director David Silverman, as the film was animated in-house at the studio's main headquarters in Burbank.

## Release

*Arlene: The Story Begins* was theatrically released by Paramount Pictures on May 14, 1999 in the United States and Canada. The film was accompanied with the *SpongeBob SquarePants* episode, Reef Blower.

### Marketing

The film was accompanied by a promotional campaign by Burger King.

#### Trailers

* The first teaser was released on September 18, 1998, and was shown before *Naturia*, *Antz*, *The Missing Riddle*, *I'll Be Home for Christmas*, *The Rugrats Movie*, *A Bug's Life*, *Babe: Pig in the City*, *Jack Frost*, *The Prince of Egypt*, and *Mighty Joe Young*.
* The official trailer was released on February 12, 1999, and was shown before *My Favorite Martian*, *The King and I*, and *Doug's 1st Movie*.
* TV spots began to air from April to May of 1999.

### Home media

*Arlene: The Story Begins* was released on VHS and DVD on November 2, 1999. The DVD release included an audio commentary by Thalia Ward, Tianna Hopes, and Kyler Fischer, a 30-minute making-of documentary, test footage, deleted scenes, and DVD-ROM features. *SpongeBob SquarePants* episode, Reef Blower, and ClearWorld's 1997 short film, *Living in the Island* were also included. This is the one of the first films to had a feature for JeremyVast.

The film was eventually released on Blu-ray in 2009 along with a bundle in mark of the film’s 10th year anniversary.

## Transcripts

### Main

To see the main transcript of the film, click here.

### Trailers

To see the transcript for the trailers of the film, click here.