Days after its bumper upfront presentation in Hollywood, Netflix brought the show to Annecy Festival on Wednesday. “Next on Netflix Animation” played to a packed house in Bonlieu’s big screen, unveiling new footage and details of key films and series due later this year and in early 2025.
There was a strong British flavor to the presentation: two of the three key projects are based on famous IP from the UK (and being produced in the country). The first was Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, a spin-off for Aardman Animations’ iconic duo, which — like last year’s Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget — revives a famous villain from the studio, in this case the ludicrous penguin thief Feathers McGraw. Aardman is brilliant at parodies, and a first-look clip that showed Feathers being incarcerated in the zoo channeled the noir dread of Cape Fear. Another clip introduced Norbot, the “smart” garden gnome developed by Wallace; the scene ended on a neat punchline, with Wallace inviting the mute Gromit to voice-activate the gnome.
Vengeance Most Fowl was discussed onstage by directors Nick Park (the franchise’s creator) and Merlin Crossingham, while concept art and behind-the-scenes images — including footage of Park performing live-action reference — played behind them. “We live in a world of pet lovers,” declared Park, by way of explaining the enduring popularity of his characters. “People read human emotions into their pets all the time.” Crossingham went on to describe Feathers’ minimalism: “His design is so simple. His strength is in his stillness.” This is precisely what makes him so hard to animate: “As an animator, you want to move things. With Feathers, you just have to back off.” In the clips we saw, the penguin’s acting nicely offset the staccato robotic movements of Norbot, who the directors strongly implied ends up in Feathers’ hands. Park summed up the premise as follows: “Technology is good, but who’s controlling it?”
“Wallace and Gromit’s world has really got to a point where Wallace is just on a big inventing spree, and he decides that what Gromit really needs is another new invention, as if he didn’t already have enough inventions already, and he invents Norbot,” said Crossingham. “Norbot is a nifty, odd-jobbing robot… he is very efficient, probably one of Wallace’s best inventions ever, ruthlessly efficient. And actually, what it does, is really upset Gromit, and gets right in the way. Walllace doesn’t really understand this. He thinks it’s the best thing ever. And things rapidly get out of control.”
The second British-based production was The Twits, the first animated film to come out of Netflix’s acquisition of the Roald Dahl Story Company. In the footage we saw, the grotesque characters of the title, who run a violent theme park and generally cause malicious havoc, were brought to life with snappy cartoonish animation (which is being produced at London’s Jellyfish Pictures) that exploited the bold shape language of their designs. An art direction heavy in lurid pinks and greens completed the picture.
Director Phil Johnston (Ralph Breaks the Internet) and his crew were not present, but supplied a behind-the-scenes package which revolved around the joke that Johnston is an irritating egotist. One reason he related to the story, he quipped, was because “I’m a liar and a sociopath myself.”
The presentation also lavished time on the series Twilight of the Gods, a reimagining of Norse mythology created by Zack Snyder, Jay Oliva and Eric Carrasco. The show pits mortal warriors against the gods in a quest for revenge. We were shown two clips — one in which the mortals negotiate with the Vanir gods in a royal court, and a vigorous action scene which pits the warriors against a dragon — as well as a teaser edited by Snyder. Many of the characters have a tall and elongated design; they are animated in 2D, with 3D used for crowds. The palettes were rich in yellows and golds, and the lighting — dappled, diffuse or dramatic, depending on the scene — was emphasized throughout.
Taking to the stage alongside Oliva and other key personnel, Snyder sang the praises of animation as a vehicle for storytelling. The show’s “gods and scale and insanity” made it a good fit for the medium. “I would love to do some more [animation],” he said. The animation is handled by Xilam, which hasn’t done many adult works in the past, said animation supervisor Slimane Aniss. But, he added, it does have one major title to its name: Jérémy Clapin’s feature I Lost My Body, which created a pool of animators at the studio who were well equipped to tackle the show’s sophisticated, action-heavy style.
Footage was also shown of director Vicky Jenson‘s Spellbound from Skydance Animation, with which Netflix set a multi-year feature deal last year, and Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight, which got a particularly big cheer. The series is directed by Alain Chabat (who also helmed the hugely successful 2002 feature Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra) and Fabrice Joubert. The brief footage we saw was gag-ridden and action-packed, with impact frames and onscreen onomatopoeia — TCHRÂÂÂÂÂC and suchlike — heightening the show’s zany energy. The animation is by France’s TAT Productions.
The event was rounded out by a package of clips from other productions in the pipeline, including new seasons of Blue Eye Samurai and Arcane — both of which also proved very popular with the audience.
Alex Dudok de Wit is an animation journalist, consultant and festival programmer. He is the author of the BFI Film Classics book on Grave of the Fireflies and Miyazaki’s Shuna’s Journey.
