Dora and the Lost City of Gold

***Dora and the Lost City of Gold*** is a live-action adventure comedy film and the thirty-second Paramount Animation film based on the Nick Jr. series *Dora the Explorer*. Produced by Nickelodeon Movies, Walden Media, Media Rights Capital, and released by Paramount Pictures (through its Paramount Players label), it was released in theaters on August 9, 2019 right after the show aired it's final episode.

The film focuses on an older Dora Márquez as she goes on a quest to find the lost city of Parapata with her cousin Diego Márquez.

## Plotedit | edit source

Young Dora spends her days in the Peruvian jungle with her cousin Diego, monkey Boots and imaginary friends Backpack and Map while warding off fox thief Swiper. When they're six years old, Diego leaves with his family to live in Los Angeles, even as Dora remains with her explorer parents, Elena and Cole, who are looking for the Inca city Parapata, the Lost City of Gold.

Ten years later, concerned for her safety, Dora is sent to live with Diego's family after her parents decipher a vital clue to Parapata's location. Dora, whose quirky habits of turning to address a non-existent audience and interacting with her imaginary friends, is no longer considered so charming at her current age. And she has a hard time fitting in with her new peers and reconnecting with Diego. Nonetheless, Dora continues to act with her usual positivity and enthusiasm despite Diego's embarrassment, interacting with fellow students Sammy and Randy. In the meantime, Dora has been hearing less and less from her parents and assumes they've just become distracted in their search for Parapata.

During a school field trip to a museum, Dora and the others are kidnapped to Peru by a band of mercenaries. Thankfully, a friend of Dora's parents, Alejandro, helps them escape. But, in the chaos Swiper steals Dora's map. Alejandro reports that Dora's parents have gone missing and mercenaries are hunting for them and planning to take Parapata's riches for themselves. Dora resolves to find them first, and everyone else trundles along hoping for rescue.

The jungle is Dora's element and recalibrates her intrepid spirit while revitalizing Diego in unexpected ways. They travel through the jungle and meet and beat various puzzles and obstacles until eventually, they meet Dora's parents right outside Parapata. Unfortunately, Alejandro was no friend of theirs and is in fact, one of the mercenaries.

They're all captured, but with Boots' help, the teenagers escape. Unfortunately, the same can't be said of Elena and Cole and the teenagers decide they'll have to get into Parapata and use the treasure as a bargaining chip. Inside the city are further dangerous traps, and while they make it through mostly unscathed and reach the central temple, they were unaware Alejandro had been following them.

Greedily, Alejandro attempts to take the city shrine's idol for himself and ends up falling into a trap instead. Parapata's guards are still alive and well, led by their queen, they capture the invading mercenaries. When they go to confront the teenagers, Dora speaks to them in Quechua, and assures the natives they'd only come for her parents and to learn about the city. Peaceably, the Inca lets them leave after getting a glimpse of their greatest treasure.

Back at their home in the jungle, Elena and Cole talk about going on a brand new expedition with the whole family. But, Dora decides to stay with her new friends and renewed relationship with Diego and decides to return to school. At least, for now.

During the credits, Dora and her friends celebrate at the school dance while singing a version of "We Did It." Alejandro remains a prisoner in Parapata, Cole and Elena prevent Swiper from making off with one of their items and Dora and rest of the school dance together.

## Castedit | edit source

* Isabela Moner as Dora
	+ Madelyn Miranda as Dora (young)
* Jeffrey Wahlberg as Diego
	+ Malachi Barton as Diego (young)
* Danny Trejo as Boots (voice)
	+ Dee Bradley Baker as Boots (Animal Vocals)

* Benicio del Toro as Swiper the Fox (voice)
* Marc Weiner as Map (voice)
* Sasha Toro as Backpack (voice)
* Eugenio Derbez as Professor Alejandro Gutierrez
* Madeline Madden as Sammy
* Nicholas Coombe as Randy
* Michael Peña as Cole
* Eva Longoria as Elena
* Adriana Barraza as Abuelita Valerie
* Pia Miller as Sabrina
* Joey Vieira as Nico
* Q'orianka Kilcher as Princess Kawillaka
* Temuera Morrison as Powell
* Christopher Kirby as Viper
* Natasa Ristic as Christina X
* Isela Vega as Old Woman

Tico the Squirrel, Benny the Bull, Isa the Iguana, the Fiesta Trio, and the Grumpy Old Troll appear during an animated sequence, but do not have any lines.

## Productionedit | edit source

On October 24, 2017, a deal was struck for a live action version of the television series to be made, with James Bobin directing. Nicholas Stoller and Danielle Sanchez-Witzel were hired to pen a script. Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes was announced as producer, though Bay and the company were ultimately not involved.

The film depicts a teenage version of Dora. It was issued an initial release date of August 2, 2019. In May 2018, Isabela Moner was cast to play Dora. Eugenio Derbez began negotiations to join in June, and was confirmed to appear in July. Micke Moreno was cast to play Diego, though had to withdraw and was replaced by Jeff Wahlberg. Eva Longoria and Michael Peña were cast as Dora's parents that August.Madeleine Madden also joined the cast of the film.In October, Q'orianka Kilcher was added to the cast,and in November, Pia Miller was set to play Dora's aunt Sabrina. In December 2018, Benicio del Toro joined as the voice of Swiper, and in March 2019, Danny Trejo announced that he had been cast as the voice of Boots the Monkey.

In an interview with *Forbes*, Moner stated that she learned Quechua language for the character. She said that the film would "take audiences to Machu Picchu" to "explore the Incan culture," and commented that "Dora is very cultured and she knows everything about everything," and that she "doesn't have a defined ethnicity."

Filming began on August 6, 2018, on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia,and concluded on December 7, 2018.

The visual effects are provided by Mill Film, Moving Picture Company and Cheap Shot VFX, supervised by Lindy De Quattro, Andy Brown and Richard Little with visualization services provided by Proof and 2D animation provided by Blink Industries.

## Receptionedit | edit source

### Box officeedit | edit source

*Dora and the Lost City of Gold* grossed $60.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $60.1 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $120.6 million against a production budget of $49 million.

In the United States and Canada, the film was released alongside *The Kitchen*, *The Art of Racing in the Rain*, *Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark* and *Brian Banks*, and was projected to gross $15–20 million from 3,500 theaters in its opening weekend.The film made $6.7 million on its first day, including $1.25 million from Thursday night previews. It went into debut to $17 million, finishing fourth at the box office; 46% of its audience was Latino, while 32% were Caucasian, 11% African-American and 10% Asian.It dropped 51% in its second weekend to $8.5 million, finishing sixth. It then made $5.3 million in its third weekend and $4.1 million in its fourth, and $2.7 million in its fifth.

### Critical responseedit | edit source

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 84% based on 148 reviews, with an average rating of 6.48/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Led by a winning performance from Isabela Moner, *Dora and the Lost City of Gold* is a family-friendly adventure that retains its source material's youthful spirit." Metacriticgave the film a weighted average score of 63 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported that adult and children filmgoers gave it an average of 4.5 and 3.5 stars out of 5, respectively.[28]

Peter Debruge of *Variety* wrote, "Whereas most of the cast (and especially Derbez) play broad, borderline-slapstick versions of their characters, Moner has the wide eyes and ever-chipper attitude we associate with Dora, but adds a level of charisma the animated character couldn't convey.

## Triviaedit | edit source

* Marc Weiner and Sasha Toro reprised their roles as Map and Backpack, respectively. but for some reason, Marc Weiner doesn't do the role of both Map and Swiper this time, even though he's always both their voice actor, but Swiper has a new voice actor for the very first time, he only does the role of Map.
	+ Apparently, Sasha Toro confirmed that she is reprising her role as Backpack on her Twitter and Instagram while NickALive announce Marc Weiner reprising his role as Map.
* Isabela Moner, who plays Dora in live-action, also voiced Kate in *Dora and Friends: Into the City!*.
	+ She's also responsible for her various roles in various movies as well.
* John Debney's fifth music collaboration with Nickelodeon Movies. It is also his first to be composed with a second composer, Germaine Franco.
* This is Walden Media's second involvement in a Nickelodeon film, following 2006's *Charlotte's Web*. Their third is *Playing with Fire*, released in November later that year.
* This is the second live-action theatrical film based on a Nickelodeon animated series. The first was *The Last Airbender*.
	+ Ironically, it is also the first to receive a favorable reception.
* This is the first Nickelodeon film to be released by Paramount Players since its founding in June 2017.
* The film was originally set for release on August 2nd, but it was pushed back to a week later on August 9th.
* Julia Pistor's first involvement in a Nickelodeon film since *The Spiderwick Chronicles* in 2009. She once again serves as an executive producer.
* The 2D-animated sequence, which pays a homage to the original *Dora the Explorer* series, was done by Blink Industries. Known for its work on the *Don't Hug Me I'm Scared* web series, Blink also provided animation to some Nickelodeon Animated Shorts Program shorts, including *Werebeast* and *The Tall Tales of Urchin*.
* This is the last Nickelodeon film to use the 1967 MPAA logo.
* When Dora, Diego, and Alejandro breathe in fumes from a patch of tropical flowers, they hallucinate their animated forms. This scene features cameo appearances from Tico, Benny, Isa, the Grumpy Old Troll, and the Fiesta Trio. This is the first Nickelodeon film to use hand-drawn animation since 2015's *The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.*
	+ Speaking of Fiesta Trio, they appeared at the VERY end of the movie when the credits were done rolling, playing the fanfare and then walking out of the screen after taking a bow along with the spore field scene.
	+ During the hallucination sequence where after Alejandro panics, he says "I don't need these clothes!" so he takes off his clothes and his underwear is flung on Dora's face. He then runs away through the bushes naked. This was cut in some showings of the movie
	+ Boots is the only character not to appear in the hallucination sequence.
	+ Big Red Chicken was set to be in the movie, however he ended up not appearing at all in the final product.
* Alejandro is the first character to be revealed as the main villain of the movie ever since Solan and Bree Blackbern from *The Wild Thornberrys Movie.*
* While the Fiesta Trio don't appear in this movie, not even playing their fanfare music after Dora passing every place, they still performed in their 2D animated forms in the post-credit scenes.
* Some parts of the film where Dora, Diego, Randy, and Sammy get sent to the jungle and got captured by Alejandro and his helpers and ending up at the Ancient city were all reused story elements from *Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie.*
* This movie reveals Dora's parents' names (Elena for Mami and Cole for Papi).
* This is the first Nick Jr. theatrical movie to be released in theaters.
* Michael Bay's studio Platinum Dunes was rumored to have produced the film, which would've marked its first family friendly film.