How ‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ Director Joel Crawford Artfully Resurrected a Franchise
thewrap.comthis is my world now,” Crawford said. It was the moment that art, for him, became “more than a hobby.” “It’s a central thing to express myself.
As we tell stories, like ‘Puss in Boots,’ there’s so many layers of conscious and even unconscious storytelling that we’re using to glue things together.”And in the most obvious “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” terms, that accident with the wall was probably one of his nine lives.
Just like in the exceptional animated feature, as Puss (voiced once again by a lively Antonio Banderas) is forced to examine his choices when it’s revealed he’s on his ninth life, Crawford’s life took on a different dimension.Crawford has been a DreamWorks Animation stalwart for more than 15 years.
He was first credited as a story artist on Jerry Seinfeld’s future meme-generator “Bee Movie” and he worked in the story department of future DreamWorks favorites like “Kung Fu Panda,” “Rise of the Guardians” and “Trolls.” In 2017, he directed “Trolls Holiday,” a Christmas special set in the world of “Trolls.” That same year Crawford was also installed as the director of “The Croods: A New Age,” another long-awaited sequel to a DreamWorks blockbuster that had been temporarily shelved when Universal outright bought the Glendale, California-based animation studio in 2016.At the time that Crawford took over the “Croods” sequel, the original filmmaker Chris Sanders wasn’t at DreamWorks Animation. (He has since returned to the studio.) Described by Crawford as “one of my idols,” Sanders met with Crawford. “He came back to meet with me and went through the script with me and gave me his thoughts on the characters,” Crawford said. “He gave me this really nice, sweet handoff that fully gave me the confidence to go.
Read more on thewrap.com