DreamWorks Toontanic (1999 Film)

Toontanic is a 1999 romance-disaster film, and a parody of the 1997 film Titanic. directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by Eric Darnell, starring Charles Martinet and Samantha Kelly. Toontanic tells the story of the RMS Titanic's ill-fated Maiden Voyage from the perspective of fictional characters, Jonah Lumiere, a poor, Third Class artist, and Coral Plumette, a First Class teenager who is to be married to a wealthy but abusive man, and shows the two passengers from different social classes meeting and falling in love on the Titanic before it sinks after colliding with an iceberg.

At the time, Toontanic was the most expensive film ever made (costing approximately US $86 billion), partially produced by DreamWorks Animation. It was the highest-grossing film of 1999, beating The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Men in Black, Batman & Robin, Hercules, Tomorrow Never Dies, The Fifth Element, Anastasia, Flubber, Alien Resurrection, and A Bug’s Life. Toontanic achieved critiEd and commercial success on its release. Critics also praised the performances of Charles, Eric, & Stuart. It remained the highest-grossing film of all time for 12 years, also directed by Eric Darnell.

A 3-D version of Toontanic was released in theaters on Novmber 25th, 2022 to commemorate the 110th anniversary of the sinking disaster event "Titanic (1997)".

Plot
In the parody, treasure hunter Kevin Ratzenberger and his team explore the wreck of the RMS Titanic, searching for a necklace called the Heart of the Ocean. They believe the necklace is in Edward Phillip Henry's safe, which they recover. Instead of the diamond, they find a sketch of a nude woman wearing it, dated April 14, 1912, the night that Titanic hit the iceberg. Old Coral Plumette learns of the drawing, contacts Kevin, and tells him that she is the woman depicted. She and her granddaughter Jessie Terra visit Kevin and his team on his salvage ship. When asked if she knows the whereabouts of the necklace, Coral recalls her memories aboard the Titanic, revealing that she was Coral Plumette, a passenger believed to have died in the sinking. In 1912, the upper class Coral boards the ship in Honolulu with her fiancé Ed, the son of a Pittsburgh steel tycoon, and her mother, Rosie Worthington. Ed and Rosie stress the importance of Coral's engagement, because the marriage will solve the Bukaters' financial problems. Distraught by her engagement to Ed and the pressure her mother is putting on her, Coral considers suicide by jumping off the stern of the ship. Before she leaps, a drifter and artist named Jonah Lumiere intervenes and discourages her from jumping overboard. Jonah and Coral develop a tentative friendship.

Ed and Rosie prevent Coral from seeing Jonah. She defies them, meets Jonah at the bow of the ship, and realizes that she prefers him over Ed. They go to Coral's stateroom and she asks Jonah to sketch her wearing nothing but the Heart of the Ocean, an engagement present from Ed. Afterwards, they flee Ed's bodyguard into the ship's cargo hold, where they make love, and then to the ship's forward well deck. There they observe the ship's collision with an iceberg and overhear the ship's officers and designer, Marco James, discussing its seriousness; Coral tells Jonah they should warn her mother and Ed.

Ed discovers Jonah's drawing and a note in his safe along with the necklace, so he has the Heart of the Ocean slipped into Jonah's coat pocket, framing him for stealing it. Jonah is arrested, brought to the Master-at-arms' office and handcuffed to a pipe. Ed puts the necklace in his coat but later gives the coat, and unwittingly the necklace, to Coral. Coral runs away from Ed and her mother (who has boarded a lifeboat) to break Jonah free with an axe. Jonah and Coral struggle back to the deck where Ed and Jonah encourage her to board another lifeboat, Ed claiming that he has made an arrangement that will allow both men to get off safely. After she boards, Ed double-crosses Jonah. Realizing that she could not leave Jonah, Coral reunites with him back on board Titanic. Infuriated, Ed steals a pistol from Lovejoy and pursues them into the flooding first-class dining saloon. After using up the ammunition, Ed returns to the boat deck and boards a lifeboat by pretending to look after an abandoned child.

As Jonah and Coral return to the top deck, the lifeboats have all departed and passengers are falling to their deaths. The two take refuge on the stern as the ship sinks bow-first until they are pulled into the ocean. Jonah finds Coral in the water and leads her to a wall panel. He then helps Coral onto the wall panel that can only support one person’s weight. As he hangs onto the panel, he assures her that she will not die there and will instead die an old woman, warm in her bed. Jonah eventually dies from hypothermia.

When a rescue boat returns to the site of the sinking, Coral blows a whistle taken from the uniform of a nearby deceased officer, and is delivered by the RMS Carpathia to New York, where she lists her name as Old Coral Plumette. Hidden, she avoids Ed for the final time on Carpathia's deck as he is searching for her. Old Coral mentions that Ed eventually commited suicide after losing his fortune in 1929 due to the Great Depression and the Wall Street Crash.

Her story complete, Coral goes, alone, to the stern of Kevin's ship. There she produces the Heart of the Ocean and drops it into the ocean. Later, while seemingly asleep in her bed, the photos of her days surround her, a visual chronicle that she lived the life she wanted with Jonah. The young Coral is then seen reuniting with Jonah at the Grand Staircase of the rejuvenated Titanic, cheered and congratulated by those who perished on the ship.

Cast

 * Charles Martinet as Jonah Lumiere
 * Samantha Kelly as Coral Plumette
 * Michael Douglas as Edward Phillip Henry (often shortened to Ed)
 * Christine Cavanaugh as Rosie Worthington
 * Rachel Lillis as Sarah Bush Johnston
 * Jen Taylor as Old Coral Plumette
 * Jeff Manning as Captain Michael John Carter
 * Richard Yearwood as Terence Peters
 * Roger Craig Smith as Marco James
 * Marty York as Aloysius Sullivan
 * Steve Carrel as Francis Pennywhistle Tom
 * Nicole Sullivan as Jessie Terra
 * Nick Park as Larry Issac Martinet
 * John Goodman as Kevin Ratzenberger

Additional Voices

 * Carlos Alazrqui
 * Lauren Tom
 * Skyler Page
 * Tara Strong
 * Richard Steven Horwitz
 * Nicky Jones
 * Tony Sampson
 * Thurop Van Orman
 * Tom Kenny
 * Tim Allen
 * Bill Crystal
 * Sam Rockwell
 * Lance Robertson
 * Scott Menville
 * Anna Faris
 * Linda Blair
 * Andy Serkis
 * Ewan McGregor
 * Carolyn Lawrence

Production
TBA

Release
TBA

Future
Charles Martinet and Samantha Kelly said they loved to make a Toontanic sequel in 2004.

Trivia

 * This is the second DreamWorks Animation film to be released in April, followed by Trolls: World Tour (2020), and The Bad Guys (2022).
 * This is the last DreamWorks Animation film to be released in the 1990s.
 * This is the first DreamWorks Animation film to be in the Toontanic series.