Dr. Dolittle (film)

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Dr. Dolittle
The movie cover for Dr. Dolittle.
Directed by	Betty Thomas
Produced by	John Davis David T. Friendly Joseph Singer
Written by	Hugh Lofting Nat Mauldin Larry Levin
Starring	Eddie Murphy
Music by	Richard Gibbs
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	June 13, 1998
Running time	85 min.
Language	English
Budget	$70,500,000 (estimated)
Followed by	Dr. Dolittle 2
IMDb profile

For the 1967 musical starring Rex Harrison, see Doctor Dolittle (film).

Dr. Dolittle is an American comedy film, released in 1998 and starring Eddie Murphy as a doctor who discovers that he has the ability to talk to (and understand) animals. The film was very loosely inspired by the series of children's novels of the same name, but none of the material from any of the novels was used; in fact, it could be said that one of the few resemblences is a doctor who can speak to animals. Notably the pushmi-pullyu, a much loved feature of the books, and of the older film, does not appear. The first novel had been originally filmed in 1967 as a musical under the title Doctor Dolittle, a closer adaptation to the book. However, the earlier film was a box office bomb.

The remake, however, was a success, and generated a theatrical sequel that was released in 2001, simply titled Dr. Dolittle 2. Both films also starred Raven Symone and Kyla Pratt as Dolittle's daughters. A third movie, Dr. Dolittle 3, was released direct-to-video in 2006, however, it did not star Eddie Murphy.

[edit] Soundtrack

The Dr. Dolittle Soundtrack was released in 1998 about half a year after the movie. The album soundtrack featured Aaliyah, Timbaland, R. Kelly, and Missy Elliot, as well as other less-known artists. The album's lead and only single "Are You That Somebody" recorded by Aaliyah and featuring Timbaland reached atop the charts, eventually making it to number one on R&B Airplay, Number One US R&B, and Number one on the Hot 100. The soundtrack reached #3 on the Billboard 200 and #2 in US R&B, selling almost 140,000 copies in the opening week. The album stayed in the charts for a good 34 weeks. The soundtrack is certified platinum, but only sold 970,000 copies. To date the album has sold 1.1 Million copies worldwide because of commercial success. The soundtrack was at one point the lowest selling album ever to be certified Platinum. At the time it was certified Platinum it has only sold 890,000 copies, but eventually sold many more.

It spent 25 weeks on the R&B Charts.

[edit] Trivia

Eddie Murphy dislikes being around some animals, and flatly refused to shoot a scene involving an alligator; hence, the animals were included via computer-generated image techniques.

After the film was a box-office success, Chris Rock was asked to reprise his role as Rodney in Dr. Dolittle 2, but he refused after requesting a larger salary. Rodney was written out of the sequels, with the explanation in the second film that he died.