9 Lives (1995 animated film)

9 Lives is a 1995 animated feature film directed by Stuart Brian and released in North America on July 7, 1995 by Universal Pictures. The film revolves around a boy who is reborn as a cat and has to learn friendship, courage and respect, while being given only 9 lives to find out and defeat who killed him. The film is a co-production between CAC Animation, TMS Entertainment, Amblin Entertainment and Universal Pictures. The film was created and written by Canadian animator Joe Brian with Stuart Brian directing the film. The film is rated PG for mild violence and frightening images.

Release dates

 * July 7, 1995 (USA & Canada)
 * July 28, 1995 (Australia & New Zealand)
 * August 11, 1995 (South Africa)
 * September 29, 1995 (UK & Ireland)
 * October 5, 1995 (Israel, Denmark, Sweden and India)
 * October 6, 1995 (Kuwait, the UAE and Pakistan)
 * October 13, 1995 (Spain)
 * October 19, 1995 (Germany)
 * October 20, 1995 (Austria and Switzerland)
 * November 1, 1995 (France)
 * November 2, 1995 (Belgium and the Netherlands)
 * November 10, 1995 (Italy, Finland, Norway and Greece)
 * November 17, 1995 (Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia)
 * November 23, 1995 (Argentina, Brazil and Peru)
 * November 24, 1995 (Colombia, Venezuela and Chile)
 * December 1, 1995 (Mexico)
 * December 6, 1995 (South Korea)
 * December 7, 1995 (Poland, Hungary, Russia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia)
 * December 9, 1995 (Japan)

Summary
A 10-year-old socially-awkward boy named Vick gets injured on his way home from school one day and is (seemingly) reborn as a cat and given the task to not only learn friendship, bravery, loyalty and respect, but also has only 9 lives to find out who had killed him. Along the way, he develops friendship with a group of alley cats, a wise, old cat named Papyrus as well as his neighbor's pet cat, Trixie.

Production
After the success of Joe Brian's Zoo Life, Film Roman, where Brian had worked for a few years before starting his career, offered him a four-film contract, beginning with New York Cats. Inspired by the Franco-Belgian comic Billy the Cat, he pitched 9 Lives to the studio, who were open to the idea of a PG-rated family film offering a rare message for audiences. Costing $16.5 million, the film's animation was mainly produced at Film Roman and Lacewood Productions in Canada, where Brian worked on his first two films, with animation subcontracted to Wang Film Productions in Taiwan, Premier Films in the United Kingdom, A. Film A/S in Denmark, Phoenix Animation Studios in Canada, Jaime Diaz Studios in Argentina and Mushi Pro, TMS and Studio Pierrot in Japan.

But since Joe Brian was planning a video game at the time, he agreed to allow his brother Stuart Brian to direct the film instead.

Reception
The film opened to moderately positive reviews from critics, praising the film's themes and its message, but many also felt that the film was quite dark for a PG-rated family film.

Roger Ebert gave the film two thumbs up as well as a 3.5 out of 4 star rating, with his review saying, "Any child who doesn't want to go see Pocahontas might give this film a chance. As dark and sometimes saddening as it is for a PG-rated film, it does have its moments of child-friendly humor and its message is a good one almost never heard of in children's films."

On a $16.5 million budget, the film grossed $27.8 million in North America and $15 million internationally, totaling $42.8 million worldwide.

Music
The film's music was composed by James Horner and released on CD and cassette by MCA Records on July 4, 1995, three days before the film's release.

The soundtrack listing is as follows:
 * 1) Main Title (3:35) *
 * 2) Ordinary Day (3:40) *
 * 3) A Different Life/Where Am I? (4:53) *
 * 4) Trixie and Vick (Theme 1) (3:48) *
 * 5) Papyrus Explains (3:18) *
 * 6) I Promise, Papyrus (3:12) *
 * 7) The Time Has Come/Victory at Last (6:25) *
 * 8) I'm Back (2:35) *
 * 9) End Title (5:20) *
 * 10) Let's Start a New Life - Trixie and Vick (3:06)
 * 11) His Heart's the Same - Trixie, Papyrus, Vick and Others (3:16)
 * 12) Let's Start a New Life - Sarah McLachlan and Peabo Bryson (3:48)
 * 13) Like a Prayer - Madonna (5:41)
 * 14) Crying - Roy Orbison (2:46)
 * 15) In Dreams - Roy Orbison (2:48)
 * - Score by James Horner

Total Length: 0:58:11

Stuart Brian's first choice was David Newman, but he was unavailable due to scheduling conflicts. Horner was suggested by Steven Spielberg, founder of Amblin and executive producer of the film, who had previously scored the Amblin productions An American Tail, The Land Before Time and *batteries not included among other films.

Horner later admitted that he enjoyed scoring the film and stated that Stuart, Joe and Laura Brian were "easy to work with", "affable" and "any of them would tell (him) 'As long as you write good music, I'll let you do what you want' and their terms were agreeable".

Home media
The film was released on VHS and Laserdisc by MCA/Universal Home Video on November 28, 1995 in North America, with the VHS edition containing trailers for Balto, The Land Before Time III: The Time of the Great Giving, Babe, Casper and The Little Rascals. Unusually, for a VHS edition from 1995, the film was shown on the VHS in widescreen format.

In 1998, the film was re-released on VHS by Universal Studios Home Video on November 10, 1998 as part of the Universal Family Features label. This edition is THX Certified and is also in widescreen format, and it was also re-released on VHS and DVD by Universal Studios in 2003. It was later released on Blu-ray by Universal on June 14, 2011.

Video games
The film spawned a few video games for the SNES, Sega Genesis, Windows, 3DO, Atari Jaguar, Game Gear, Master System, PlayStation and Sega Saturn, with the SNES/Genesis game published on July 4, 1995 by MCA\Universal Merchandising and Konami and the PlayStation/3DO/Saturn/Atari Jaguar game published on November 28, 1995 by the same companies. A Game Boy game also published by Konami was released on July 11, 1995 with Super Game Boy enhancements.