When Does "The Road to El Dorado" (2000) Take Place?
"The Road to El Dorado" is a comedy historical fiction animated film musical written by Terry Rossio with Ted Elliott and released March 31st, 2000.
It takes place in the year:
We know this because the very first shot (after a mythological opening about the foundation of the city of El Dorado) includes a time setting title card reading "Spain 1519".
1519 AD or 1504 AD
We know this because the very first shot (after a mythological opening about the foundation of the city of El Dorado) includes a time setting title card reading "Spain 1519".
The two main characters Miguel and Tulio end up on the real-world Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano's ship headed for 'the New World'. As the first words in the script are Cortés' "Today, we sail to conquer the New World!" he is about to set sail for the Americas.
HOWEVER, in the real world, Cortés left Spain for Central America in 1504 AD (he arrived by the end of the year) and only first returned in 1528 AD meaning he was not in Spain at all in 1519 AD. This means the story actually takes place in 1504 AD.
(ALSO, in the real world, it was Ferdinand Magellan who left Spain to cross the Atlantic Ocean on September 20th, 1519 AD. That voyage reached South America in December of the same year. It is POSSIBLE the character in the film is in fact Magellan pretending to be Hernán Cortés for some reason and it IS 1519 AD.)
It was adapted as a video game in 2000.
