Cannes: Animated ‘Animal Crackers’ Selling Around the World (Exclusive)
Arclight Films is selling the project, which has a voice cast that includes Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Danny DeVito, Ian McKellen and Sylvester Stallone.
Animated film Animal Crackers is taking a bite out of Cannes, with Arclight Films bringing the film to the market and making sales in key territories.
The adventure comedy features a high-wattage voice cast including Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Danny DeVito, Ian McKellen, Sylvester Stallone and Raven-Symone.
Directed by Tony Bancroft and Scott Christian Sava, Animal Crackers centers on a family who must use a magical box of Animal Crackers to save a run-down circus from being taken over by their evil uncle, Horatio P. Huntington.The catch is, once anyone eats an animal cracker, they turn into that animal.
Arclight Films is handling worldwide sales on Animal Crackers, which has sold in several territories including the U.K. & Canada (E-One), Latin America (Imagem), Philippines (Captive Entertainment), Middle East (ECS), Bulgaria (A Plus), Portugal (Prisvideo), India (Pictureworks), South Korea (Atrium), Israel (Filmhouse), Iceland (Myndform), and the Czech Repuplic, Hungary and Romania (Prorom).
“We’re excited to be working with Scott and the incredibly talented Animal Crackers team,” said Gary Hamilton, managing director of Arclight Films. “The expertise of the cast and crew is unrivaled and the end result is a top-notch, superbly animated feature film that audiences worldwide will enjoy immensely.”
The film was produced through Scott’s Blue Dream Studios and its sister company Blue Dream Studios Spain, headed up by Jaime Maestro and Nathalie Martinez, with funding coming from South Korea, China and North America.
“This film has been a labor of love, said Sava. “We have put together this amazing story, and we are so excited that Arclight Films is going to help us share it with the world.”
In what marks John Krasinski’s first major studio directorial release, The Office alum will write, direct and star with wife Emily Blunt in the Paramount/Platinum Dunes feature A Quiet Place. It’s also the first time the duo has appeared onscreen together. Even though they are co-credited with appearances in 2011’s The Muppets, they did not share scenes.
The storyline for A Quiet Place is being kept under wraps. Production is scheduled for this fall. Krasinski re-wrote the script from an earlier draft by Scott Beck & Bryan Woods. Paramount originally bought Beck and Woods’ spec before Krasinski boarded. We hear the studio is very high on the duo and put a blind write-to-direct deal in place.
Krasinski and his Sunday Night partner Allyson Seeger will serve as executive producers along with Beck & Woods. Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller of Platinum Dunes will produce.
A Quiet Place marks Krasinski’s third feature directorial. His movie The Hollars premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival and was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics. Recently, Krasinski served as EP on the Oscar-winning pic Manchester by the Sea. He’ll next be seen in Kathryn Bigelow’s Untitled Detroit Project, and stars as the title character in Paramount TV/Platinum Dune’s Jack Ryan Amazon series which will air next year. Previously, Krasinski co-penned the Gus Van Sant natural gas fracking drama Promised Land with Matt Damon which won high praise at the National Board of Review and the Berlin Film Festival.
Blunt is currently in production on Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns which will open on Dec. 28, 2018. She was recently nominated for a BAFTA and SAG award for her turn in DreamWorks/Universal’s The Girl on the Train which made $173.2M worldwide. Throughout Blunt’s career, her films have amassed close to $2.7 billion at the global B.O.
Next up for scribes Beck & Woods’ is Haunt, which the duo will direct from their original screenplay. Broken Road’s Todd Garner, Nickel City Pictures’ Mark Fasano, Ankur Rungta, and Vishal Rungta are producing with Jeremy Stein as EP. The duo are also writing the pilot Zeroes for Sony Pictures TV and Davis Entertainment, based on the book by New York Times bestselling author Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan, and Deborah Biancotti.
Krasinski and Platinum Dunes are repped by WME. Blunt is repped by CAA and The Artists Partnership. Beck & Woods are represented by ICM Partners, Madhouse Entertainment, and Manatt, Phelps, & Phillips.
I’ve added some photos of Emily attending the 23rd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at The Shrine Expo Hall in Los Angeles, California (January 29). Thanks to AliKat for the photos! Stay tuned for more updates very soon.
I’ve added some photos of Emily at AOL’s BUILD series London (September 21).
The gallery has been updated with photos of Emily attending the world premiere of The Girl on the Train, at Odeon Leicester in London, England (September 20).
Mary Poppins Returns
Animal Crackers
