The film was directed by Kevin Lima and Chris Buck and produced by Bonnie Arnold, from a screenplay written by Tab Murphy and the writing team of Bob Tzudiker and Noni White.
It stars the voices of Tony Goldwyn as the title character along with Minnie Driver, Glenn Close, Rosie O'Donnell, Brian Blessed, Lance Henriksen, Wayne Knight, and Nigel Hawthorne.
Meanwhile, British explorer Archimedes Q. Porter, his daughter Jane, and their hunter escort William Cecil Clayton arrive in Africa to study the gorillas.
Now aware of the location of the nesting grounds, Clayton plans to capture and sell the gorillas for a fortune, and imprisons Tarzan and the Porters to prevent their interference.
As the ship's rowboat leaves shore, Porter encourages his daughter to stay with the man she loves, and Jane jumps overboard, followed soon after by her father.
"[17] Following his two-month study of the book, Lima approached his friend, Chris Buck, who had just wrapped up work as a supervising animator on Pocahontas (1995), to ask if he would be interested in serving as co-director.
[18] By April 1995, the Los Angeles Times reported that the film was in its preliminary stages with Lima and Buck directing after Disney had obtained the story rights from the estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs.
[19] Tab Murphy, who had just finished work on The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), was attracted to the theme of man-versus-nature in Tarzan, and began developing a treatment in January 1995.
[22] In January 1997, husband-and-wife screenwriting duo Bob Tzudiker and Noni White were hired to help refocus and add humor to the script as a way to balance the emotional weight of the film.
[33] To create the sweeping 3D backgrounds, Tarzan's production team developed a 3D painting and rendering technique known as Deep Canvas (a term coined by artist/engineer Eric Daniels).
Expanded to support moving objects as part of the background, Deep Canvas was used to create about 75 percent of the environments in Disney's next major animated action film, Treasure Planet (2002).
Early into production, directors Kevin Lima and Chris Buck decided not to follow Disney's musical tradition by having the characters sing.
[35][36] The choice of Collins, a popular and well established adult contemporary artist, led to comparisons with Elton John's earlier music for The Lion King (1994).
[47] Continuing its advertising alliance with McDonald's, its promotional campaign began on the film's opening day with several toys accompanied with Happy Meals and soda straws that replicated the Tarzan yell.
[52] The DVD version contained bonus material, including the "Strangers Like Me" music video, the making of "Trashin' the Camp" featuring Collins and 'N Sync, and an interactive trivia game.
[58][59] Pre-release box office tracking indicated that Tarzan was appealing to all four major demographics noticeably for the first time for a Disney animated film since The Lion King (1994).
During the weekend of June 18–21, Tarzan grossed $34.1 million ranking first at the box office, beating out Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) and The General's Daughter (1999).
The critical consensus reads that "Disney's Tarzan takes the well-known story to a new level with spirited animation, a brisk pace, and some thrilling action set-pieces.
[66] Entertainment Weekly compared the film's advancement in visual effects to that of The Matrix, stating that it had "the neatest computer-generated background work since Keanu Reeves did the backstroke in slow motion".
They elaborate by describing how the characters moved seamlessly through the backgrounds themselves, giving the film a unique three-dimensional feel that far surpassed the quality of previous live-action attempts.
[68] Awarding the film three stars, James Berardinelli wrote: "From a purely visual standpoint, this may be the most impressive of all of Disney's traditionally animated features.
"[69] Desson Howe, writing for The Washington Post, claimed the film "isn't up there with Aladdin, The Lion King and The Little Mermaid, but it's easily above the riffraff ranks of Hercules and Pocahontas".
[72] Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle admired the film for tackling "meanings of family relationships and ideas about society, guardianship and compassion" and "cunning and greed and the ultimate evil", as well as remaining faithful to Burroughs's original novel.
[73] Kenneth Turan of Los Angeles Times wrote that the "story unfolds with dangers as well as warm humor; a jungle jam session called 'Trashin' the Camp' is especially hard to resist.
"[74] Janet Maslin, reviewing for The New York Times, similarly opined that "Tarzan initially looks and sounds like more of the same, to the point where Phil Collins is singing the words 'trust your heart' by the third line of his opening song.
But it proves to be one of the more exotic blooms in the Disney hothouse, what with voluptuous flora, hordes of fauna, charming characters and excitingly kinetic animation that gracefully incorporates computer-generated motion.
"[75] The Radio Times review was not as positive, stating the film "falls way short of Disney's best output" and featured "weak comic relief".
"[76] Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune, while giving the film three stars, wrote that Tarzan "lacks that special pizazz that the string of Disney cartoon features from The Little Mermaid through The Lion King all had".
He found faults in the film's removal of all African characters, lack of romantic tension between Tarzan and Jane, and the songs by Phil Collins, comparing them unfavorably with Elton John's "showstoppers" for The Lion King.
Tarzan's home is also featured as a playable world, "Deep Jungle", in the 2002 game Kingdom Hearts, and in the 2013 HD remaster Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix, in which Goldwyn and Blessed were the only actors from the film to reprise their roles, while Jane was voiced by Naia Kelly and Audrey Wasilewski reprised her role as Terk from the 1999 video game based on the film; Kerchak and Kala appeared, but were silent, while Tantor and Professor Porter were absent.