‘Luck,’ First Feature From Skydance Animation, to Debut on AppleTV+ in August
thewrap.comThompson wrote. “Shouldn’t it be John Lasseter who has to lose HIS job if the employees don’t want to give him a second chance?” This led to a townhall-style meeting where Skydance head David Ellison took concerned comments from the animation staff.In 2020, original director Alessandro Carloni was replaced with Peggy Holmes, who had worked on a pair of direct-to-video Tinker Bell movies Lasseter oversaw. (This itself is somewhat troubling given Lasseter’s behavior around the voice actors from the Disney Fairies movies.) Lasseter then installed Kiel Murray, who had worked on “Cars” (directed by Lasseter), as the new screenwriter, replacing DreamWorks Animation vets Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger.It’s a shame, too, that Lasseter’s involvement clouds an otherwise exciting project.
Skydance Animation recently released their debut animated short, the very adorable “Blush” (which is in play for the Best Animated Short Oscar this year), written and directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Joe Mateo (who worked on Disney’s “Prep and Landing” and “Big Hero 6”).
And they have another feature supposedly in the works for 2022 – “Spellbound,” featuring new music by Alan Menken. And Apple TV+ is clearly interested and invested in animation; they released the Oscar-nominated “Wolfwalkers” from Irish studio Cartoon Saloon, and have released several “Peanuts”-related animated projects on the platform.
It’s exciting to see what they will do, ostensibly, with their own animated projects (Skydance Animation moved from Paramount to Apple) and what the response will be.
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