Sykes becomes Oscar's manager and forgives his debt, and Oscar moves to the "top of the reef" to live in luxury. With no other witnesses, Oscar takes credit for killing Frankie and quickly rises in fame as the "Sharkslayer". Devastated and blaming himself for his brother's demise, Lenny leaves. Furious and fed up with his brother’s tenderness, Frankie charges at Oscar, but suddenly an anchor from above the surface falls on his neck, killing him. While the two shock a tied-up Oscar, Frankie sees them and urges Lenny to eat Oscar, but Lenny instead frees Oscar and tells him to escape. Sykes loses his temper and orders his two Jamaican jellyfish henchmen, Ernie and Bernie, to deal with Oscar. Lucky Day eventually takes the lead, only to trip and lose short of the finish line. Sykes is annoyed that Oscar bet the money, but he hopes that Oscar might win. A lionfish gold digger named Lola sees this and flagrantly seduces Oscar. Oscar brings the money from the pearl to a seahorse race to meet Sykes, but hears that the race is rigged and bets it all on a seahorse named "Lucky Day". Lino orders his violent eldest son, Frankie, to mentor Lenny. Meanwhile, Don Edward Lino, the don of a gang of sharks, orcas, swordfish and octopuses, dislikes that his son Lenny is a vegetarian. His best friend, and angelfish named Angie, offers him a pearl that was a gift from her grandmother to pawn and pay his debt. He owes money to his boss, a pufferfish named Sykes. In the Southside Reef, a lowly Hawaiian cleaner wrasse named Oscar fantasizes about being rich and famous. It was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 77th Academy Awards, but lost to Pixar's The Incredibles. It was criticized by advocacy groups for its use of Italian-American stereotypes. The film received mixed reviews from film critics. It made $374.6 million worldwide against its $75 million budget, finishing its theatrical run as the ninth-highest-grossing film of 2004. Shark Tale premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 10, 2004, and was theatrically released in the United States on October 1.
It tells the story of a fish named Oscar (Smith) who falsely claims to have killed Frankie (Imperioli), the son of a shark mob boss named Don Lino (De Niro), to advance his community standing and teams up with the mobster's other son Lenny (Black) to keep up the facade. Doug, Michael Imperioli, Vincent Pastore, Peter Falk, Kevin Pollak, and Katie Couric. Other voices include Ziggy Marley, Doug E. Directed by Vicky Jenson, Bibo Bergeron, and Rob Letterman (in Letterman's feature directorial debut), the film contains an ensemble cast starring the voices of Will Smith, Jack Black, Robert De Niro, Renée Zellweger, Angelina Jolie, and Martin Scorsese. Shark Tale is a 2004 American computer-animated comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by DreamWorks Pictures.