The Thief and The Cobbler - Releases

Releases

After the movie was completed, Allied Filmmakers, along with Majestic Films, reacquired the distribution rights from the Completion Bond Company. Calvert's version of the film was distributed in Australia and South Africa as The Princess and the Cobbler.

In December 1994, Miramax Films, then a subsidiary of Disney—who had, ironically, released Aladdin two years earlier—bought the rights in the U.S. Until Miramax agreed to distribute the film, it was refused by many other American distributors. "It was a very difficult film to market, it had such a reputation," Calvert recalls. "I don't think that they were looking at it objectively." Miramax recut the film even further and released their own version entitled Arabian Knight, which featured newly-written dialogue by Eric Gilliland, Michael Hitchcock, and Gary Glasberg, and an all-star voice cast that was added several months before the film's release. The voice cast consists of Matthew Broderick as Tack and Jonathan Winters as the Thief. Tack and the Thief's dialogue was added over nearly every scene of the film; Williams' version had been largely dialogue-less. The character of the Old Witch was entirely removed (save for a few lines of dialogue and ghost-like image), as was most of a climactic battle sequence.

Arabian Knight was quietly released by Miramax on 25 August 1995. It opened on 510 screens, and grossed US$319,723 (on an estimated budget of $24 million) during its theatrical run.