‘Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken’ Director Kirk DeMicco Took Inspiration From the Octopus: ‘We Have Curves on Everything’

thewrap.com:

release the kraken.And she’ll need it, as she’s got to do battle with a cute, popular girl who is also an evil mermaid. (Like Disney’s fabled mermaid, she also has red hair.) This leads to an unexpectedly epic kaiju battle between mermaid and kraken that is pretty amazing.TheWrap spoke to director Kirk DeMicco, who helmed “Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken” (with co-director Faryn Pearl), shortly before the movie’s splashy (get it?) premiere at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.

DeMicco previously directed (with Chris Sanders) “The Croods” for DreamWorks and last directed “Vivo,” which began life as a DreamWorks project before moving to Sony Pictures Animation.

He’s back! And he’s fired up about his utterly charming new film. We talk about how he got involved, what informed the design language of the film and whether or not Guillermo del Toro had seen “Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken.”How did you get involved with “Ruby Gillman?” “Vivo” just came out in 2021.I had just wrapped “Vivo” and was I got a call from Chris Kuser, a development executive I worked with since 2003 at DreamWorks, who told me about his project.

I think talked to [producer] Kelly Cooney and [executive producer] Mike Mitchell. They’re all basically saying the same thing, like, “Come jump on this.”The thing that was really exciting for me, one was the chance to tell a mother/daughter story.