Trivia / The Swan Princess

• Actor-Inspired Element: Rothbart was conceived as a much darker villain (as reflected in his original song "Rothbart's Revenge"). When Jack Palance was cast, he brought a darkly comic tone to the lines, which led to his Villain Song becoming "No More Mr Nice Guy".
• Ascended Fanon: Fans have often assumed that Odette's Missing Mom must have died in childbirth, since she never appears even in the opening scenes when Odette is a baby. In 2023, the second-to-last sequel, The Swan Princess: A Fairytale Beginning, revealed that she did indeed die when Odette was born.
• Box Office Bomb:
  • The original film grossed $9,771,658 against a $21 million budget despite being well-promoted, largely due to Disney re-releasing The Lion King (1994) on the same day The Swan Princess was released.
  • Escape from Castle Mountain did even worse, grossing only $273,644 at the box office as it was mostly straight to video.
• The Cast Showoff: Howard McGillin (Derek) is just about the only cast member to do all of his own singing, being a respected Broadway alumnus — most notably as Broadway's longest running Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera.
• Channel Hop: The film was originally going to be made by Disney until Richard Rich left and decided to pursue the project independently. Ironically, Odette could have been a Disney Princess. Domestic distribution rights for the series also shifted from New Line Cinema for The Swan Princess^note though the Turner Home Entertainment VHS/laserdisc releases lacked any New Line references, replacing it with the Nest logo, to Warner Bros. Family Entertainment for Escape From Castle Mountain, to Sony Pictures (who always held the series' international distribution rights) for the movies from The Mystery Of The Enchanted Kingdom onwards; the last hop also transferred WB's rights over the first two movies to Sony.
• Creator Backlash: Supposedly, Richard Rich does not think highly of the third installment.
• Creator Breakdown: The film having to compete with the re-release of The Lion King (1994) took a toll on Richard Rich's mental health.
  "And I went that day to the theater, took a bunch of kids with me and watched it and had a good time. It wasn’t as full as I had hoped it would be that day because people were going to see The Lion King again. That didn’t really matter in the long run of things, but that night I was feeling really, really bad. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt that bad in my whole life. And I was getting hourly reports of how it was doing across the country, and my wife turned to me and said ‘It doesn’t matter. You made a great picture.’ And once she said that to me, it all changed. It meant everything in the world for her to say that. I knew I had made a great picture because my wife is a tough critic.”
• Cut Song: Nest posted two of the first movie's deleted songs on YouTube in anticipation of the 25th anniversary:
  • "Forever In My Heart", replaced in the final film by "Far Longer Than Forever" (but not before an excerpt made it onto an EPK preview included on some 1994 Turner VHS tapes).
  • "Rothbart's Song", replaced in the final film by "No More Mr. Nice Guy".
• Defictionalization: This journal turned How to Offend Women in Five Syllables or Less into a real book.
• Direct to Video: Every film after the second installment was released straight to video.
• Dueling Movies: On the same day this film was released, Disney re-released The Lion King. In addition, John Cleese was given the choice between playing Zazu in The Lion King and Jean Bob in The Swan Princess which he chose. Both movies also have the main villain wanting to take over the kingdom of the father of the protagonist. This film was originally pitched by Richard Rich at Disney but was turned down. Later, it was developed at Disney after he left to form his own production company. However, this was canceled because they could not reach into agreement with former Disney animator and director Richard Rich so Pocahontas was worked on instead. Pocahontas is the winner since it was a moderate box office success.
• Fake Brit: Sandy Duncan (Queen Uberta), James Arrington (Sir Chamberlain), Dakin Matthews (King William), Jack Palance (Sir Rothbart), Joel McKinnon Miller (Bromley), and Mark Harelik (Lord Rogers) - all American - put on Cockney English accents to voice their characters. This could possibly be the reason why this film is implied to be set somewhere in Medieval England, though not noted or said in the film.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: In Japanese theaters, the movie began with a music video for Dreams Come True's end credits song "Eternity"; the American Turner and Nest VHS tapes play it at the end. However, the video didn't make it to the DVD or the Blu-ray; the latter goes so far as to remove an excerpt of it from the bonus 1995 documentary. Interestingly, the Swan Princess website continued selling overstock of the Turner VHS, complete with the music video, past The New '10s.
• Kids' Meal Toy: Sizzler had plush toys of Odette (in her swan form), Jean Bob Frog, Puffin, and Speed.
• Market-Based Title: The Swan Princess: Escape From Castle Mountain became The Swan Princess: The Secret of the Castle for international releases; America also uses this title for the DVD.
• Non-Singing Voice:
  • Odette in the first movie. Michelle Nicastro was a musical theatre performer, having played Éponine in the 2nd National Tour of Les Misérables, but the film's producers decided that her poppish singing style wasn't "princess-like" enough and cast Liz Callaway — who has made something of a career as a Non-Singing Voice for animated princesses — as Odette's singing voice. In the sequels, however, Michelle did her own singing.
  • Jean-Bob and Rothbart, and Clavius in the sequel, though he does sing in his real voice over the end credits.
  • Derek averts this in the first and third movies, then plays it straight in the others (although Douglas Sills provides his own singing voice for the final rap).
  • Bernd Klinzmann does Puffin's singing voice in The Mystery of the Enchanted Treasure (since Eberhard Prüter couldn't sing).
• The Other Darrin:
  • Played straight in the sequels for everyone except Odette, Sir Chamberlain and Puffin. Odette falls under this trope from the Christmas Special onward, due to Michelle Nicastro's death in 2010; and Steve Vinovich (Puffin) was replaced in that same movie.
  • Latin American Spanish: The first movie was dubbed in Los Angeles, the first two sequels went to Mexico, and the CGI specials are now going to Argentina.
  • German: The CGI specials have had Puffin's voice replaced since Eberhard Prüter's death in 2014.
• The Other Marty: In the Brazilian dub of the second movie, Sílvia Goiabeira originally reprised her role as Odette but, most likely to get more publicity, her dialogue was redubbed by Brazilian children's TV host Angélica. The original version featuring Silvia's voice was later released.
• Sequel Gap: 14 years between the second movie, The Swan Princess: The Mystery of the Enchanted Kingdom, and the third, The Swan Princess Christmas
• Vindicated by Cable: The first film was a Box Office Bomb, but its video sales allowed it to spawn an entire franchise that would eventually be exclusively Direct to Video.
• What Could Have Been:
  • After a test screening, the audience found Derek too unsympathetic. So the filmmakers added in little moments and lines to make him much kinder - for example telling the Butt-Monkey musician in "Practice Practice Practice" to take some time off, and his speech to the dying Odette about loving her kindness and courage.
  • "No More Mr. Nice Guy" was originally recorded with Jack Palance singing, but the producers felt his singing voice was too sinister and potentially frightening, so it was recomposed and rerecorded with composer Lex de Azevedo playing Rothbart.
• Word of God: Richard Rich says that Rothbart worked with both Zelda and Clavius after he was banished by King William, but Zelda is ignoring Clavius's involvement when she tells her story "as there was no one alive to challenge her account".
• Written by Cast Member: The Swan Princess Christmas was written by Yuri Lowenthal, who voiced Derek.

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