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The streamer will premiere its hotly anticipated 'Ultraman Rising' at the French animation festival, and screen 'Blue Eye Samurai' and 'Pokemon Concierge' in official competition.
By Scott Roxborough
Europe Bureau Chief
Claymation legends Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham will offer stop-motion fans a sneak peek at their upcoming Wallace & Gromit film at this year’s Annecy animation festival.
The still-untitled feature will see inveterate, cheese-loving inventor Wallace designing a “smart gnome” for the family garden who begins to develop a mind of its own. As events spiral out of control, it is up to faithful dog Gromit to put things right. Park and Crossingham co-directed the film, based on a story by Park and a screenplay from Shaun the Sheep and Gnomeo & Juliet writer Mark Burton.
The film, which will premiere on Netflix worldwide outside the U.K., where it will have a first-release window on the BBC, is the second feature from Aardman Animations based on the beloved characters, following the Oscar-winning Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) and the series of award-winning shorts, including Oscar-winners The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995). Aardman will also bring along several of the puppets from the new film as part of a Wallace & Gromit exhibition at Annecy this year.
Other works Netflix will be highlighting at Annecy this year include Roald Dahl adaptation The Twits from Oscar-nominated director Phil Johnson (Ralph Breaks the Internet), Skydance Animation’s Spellbound, and the steampunk action-adventure series Arcane.
On the other end of the animation spectrum from Aardman, Zack and Deborah Snyder, together with Xilam Animation director Slimane Aniss, will screen clips of their new adult animated series Twilight of the Gods for the Annecy audience. The series, created by Zack Snyder, Jay Olivia and Eric Carrasco, is a retelling of ancient Norse myths and features the voice talents of Sylvia Hoeks, Stuart Martin, Pilou Asbaek, Kristopher Hivju, Peter Stormare, and Corey Stoll, among others. The series hits Netflix worldwide this fall. The second half of Synder’s live action sci-fi saga Rebel Moon dropped on Netflix on April 19.
On the comedy side, Big Mouth co-creators Nick Kroll, Andrew Goldberg, Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin will head to Annecy for a festival send off for the seventh and final season of the hit series.
Netflix is going full-in on animation and anime, and will be using Annecy to highlight many of its upcoming series. The hotly-anticipated Ultraman: Rising, an adventure feature based on the iconic Japanese anime, will have its world premiere at the French festival on June 12. Annie award winner Blue Eye Samauri and the Annie nominee Pokemon Concierge have both been picked for the festival’s official competition.
For the festival’s work-in-progress sessions, British writer/director Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually) and animation veteran Simon Otto (How to Train Your Dragon) will discuss their upcoming animated feature That Christmas, an adaptation of Curtis’ holiday book trilogy, which Otto will direct and which will feature Succession star Brian Cox as the voice of Santa and the voice talents of Brit stars Jodie Whittaker, Bill Nighy and Fiona Shaw, among others.
Annecy will unveil its full 2024 lineup later this week.
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