Jun 13, 2023

Dreamworks reveals a new Charlie Kaufman・written film - Orion and the Dark, - coming to Netflix in 2024 - an exclusive video.

At today's Annecy International Animation Film Festival, Dreamworks announced the next features of its pipeline, Orion and Dark. The film, written by Charlie Kaufman (John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of a dirty Mind) and directed by Sean Charmatz (Story artist, Spongebob Square Pants, Head of the Story, Angry Birds Movie 2), will debut on Netflix in 2024. It's a good idea.

Cartoon Brew sat down with Charmatz at Annecy and he gave us a scoop on his upcoming movie. Orion's production designer Tim Lamb and art director Christine Bian are also involved in the video. Take a look at the interview below:

In the conversation, Charmatz said he was excited to work on the screenplay by Oscar-winning screenwriter Kaufman. Knowing he had such a strong foundation to build on, the director explained that his team made as few changes as possible to the original script.

According to Charmatz, "We all thought it was our job to basically not touch as much as we could and leave Charlie's writing as much as we could." We wanted to add more physical sticks. For me, it was mainly about the stakes being really clear. [It] was about making sure the character wanted what and the audience felt it...The rest is Charlie is Incredible for us"

The official synopsis of Dreamworks for Orion and Dark, which is based on Emma Yarlett's children's book, is as follows:

Orion seems as much as your average elementary school kid – shy, shy, and shy. It's a classic, understated, and clandestine crush. But beneath his seemingly normal appearance, Orion is a ball of adolescent anxiety, a bee, a dog, a sea, a cell phone wave, a murderous ditch clown, and even falling off a cliff.But of all his fears, what he fears the most is what he faces every night: darkness. So, when the literal embodiment of his worst fears pays a visit, Dark lather Orion on a rollercoaster ride around the world to prove that there's nothing to fear at night. As the unlikely pair approaches, Orion has to decide whether he can learn to accept the unknown – so that fear can stop taking control of his life and eventually accept the joy of living.

Dreamworks was not a studio afraid to touch adult themes with its child or family titles, and that's the case here. In fact, the character Dark was designed as a physical manifestation of all fear. He says the designers were thinking of Reaper when they conceptualized the character.

"I think it was cool to have a character where the studio talked about death and asked, "What happens after I die,""Charmatz explained. "Sometimes the studio is afraid to really go to something that could affect such an audience emotionally.

Animation of the film is performed in the studios of Mikros Animation in Paris and Bangalore. Apart from collaborating with Aardman, Dreamworks first used an external studio to animate one of the theatrical films in 2017's Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, which was released on May 1.This was created by Mikros in Montreal. Captain Pants was a commercial and artistic success, celebrated for its innovative and stylized animated choices. The film earned興行収入3800 million at the box office with a budget of onlyわ12500 million. The studio later recruited out-of-studio help for the films "Spirit Untamed" and "The Boss Babe: Family Business", both featuring work done by Jellyfish Pictures.

Captain Pants was Dreamworks' first effort in a bigger push to make movies on a more conservative budget. While Orion and The Dark's budget hasn't been released yet, Charmatz told us that Dreamworks is more in line with its independent animation features than the best-known popcorn blockbusters. That said, the director was delighted to try out the restrictions imposed by the small budget. He said the film crew was clever at achieving some of the creative goals, such as shooting spots of ink on the iphone and adding them to the film as transitions.

Its indie spirit is also found in the tone of the film and is more subdued than the one used by audiences to do in typical Dreamworks productions. The studio has been impressed with its willingness to try new things in recent years, and Orion looks like another exciting step in that direction.

Lamb explained, "We felt like we were handmade and wanted something unfinished with a natural quality. Something not cleaned and hyper-real. We lean on our limits and think in many ways that led to the final look of the film.

Bian says, "One of the elements of that handmade feeling is to see the line work.1 And we got it from Ronald Searle's beautiful pen and ink style. It feels very drawn, so I wanted to find a way to capture it and bring it into the 3d world, but it succeeded.

Peter McCown is making films for Dreamworks. Walt Dawn and Bonnie Arnold are executive producers.