Brian Blessed in the context of "Tarzan (1999 film)"

Tarzan is a 1999 American animated adventure comedy-drama film based on the 1912 story Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, it was directed by Kevin Lima and Chris Buck, from a screenplay by Tab Murphy, and the writing team of Bob Tzudiker and Noni White, and is the first major animated film adaptation of the story. Tony Goldwyn stars as the titular character, alongside Minnie Driver, Glenn Close, Rosie O'Donnell, Alex D. Linz, Brian Blessed, Nigel Hawthorne, Lance Henriksen, and Wayne Knight. The film follows an orphan who is raised by the family of gorillas in Africa, after his real parents were killed by a leopard. Years later, he grows up into a man and meets other humans. He is soon torn by them and must choose between staying with them or a group of animals.

Pre-production of Tarzan began in 1995, with Lima selected as director and Buck joining him the same year. Following Murphy's first draft, Tzudiker, White, Dave Reynolds, and Jeffrey Stepakoff (the latter two of whom received additional screenplay credits in the final cut), were brought in to reconstruct the third act and add additional material to the screenplay. English recording artist Phil Collins was recruited to compose and record songs integrated with a score by Mark Mancina. Meanwhile, the production team embarked on a research trip to Uganda and Kenya to study the gorillas. The animation of the film combines 2D hand-drawn animation with the extensive use of computer-generated imagery, and it was done in California, Orlando, and Paris, with the pioneering computer animation software system Deep Canvas being predominantly used to create three-dimensional backgrounds.