petty swindlers, and the setting of the film was changed to a more luscious paradise. Additionally, the romance was toned down, and new clothing was designed for Chel. Producer Bonnie Radford explained, "We originally thought it would be rated PG-13 and so we skewed it to that group...But then we thought we could not exclude the younger kids so we had to tone the romance down." Finn and Silverman left the project in 1998 following disputes over the film's creative direction, and were replaced by Eric "Bibo" Bergeron and Don Paul. Katzenberg reportedly co-directed the film albeit uncredited. Casting On August 15, 1998, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, and Rosie Perez had signed onto the film. Because the characters and film drew from the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby Road to ... films, producer Bonne Radford remarked that "[t]he buddy relationship [between the duo] is the very heart of the story. They need each other because they're both pretty inept. They're opposites — Tulio is the schemer and Miguel is the dreamer. Their camaraderie adds to the adventure; you almost don't need to know where they're going or what they're after, because the fun is in the journey." Unusual for an animated film, Kline and Branagh recorded their lines in the same studio room together, in order for the two to achieve more realistic chemistry. This resulted in a good deal of improvised dialogue, some of which ended up in the film. Animation Early into production, a team of designers, animators, producers, and Katzenberg embarked on research trips to Mexico where they studied ancient Mayan cities of Tulum, Chichen Itza, and Uxmal in hopes of making the film's architecture look authentic. By January 1997, one hundred animators were assigned onto the project. However, because the animation department was occupied with The Prince of Egypt, the studio devoted more animators and resources on that film than on Road to El Dorado. Additional fine line animation was outsourced to Stardust Pictures in London and Bardel Entertainment in Vancouver. The creation sequence in the film, possibly the opening number by Elton John, was provided with traditional animation and CGI provided by Pacific Data Images. Music Marylata Jacob, who started DreamWorks' music department in 1995, became the film's music supervisor before the script was completed. Consulting with Katzenberg, Jacob decided the musical approach to the film would be world music. In 1996, Tim Rice and