Timeline-YATAD/Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken

Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken is a 2023 American animated action comedy film produced by Yonatan Ashad Channel Movies, Nickelodeon Movies, DreamWorks Animation, and Yonatan Ashad Animation Studios, and distributed by Yonatan Ashad Productions, Universal Pictures, and Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Kirk DeMicco, co-directed by Faryn Pearl (in her official directorial debut), and written by Pam Brady and the writing team of Brian C. Brown and Elliott DiGuiseppi. The film stars the voices of Lana Condor, Toni Collette, Annie Murphy, Sam Richardson, Liza Koshy, Will Forte, Colman Domingo, Jaboukie Young-White, Blue Chapman, and Jane Fonda. 
== Premise ==
The film follows a shy 16-year-old anthropomorphic kraken girl named Ruby Gillman who is desperate to fit in at Oceanside High. When she breaks her mother's (Collette) rule by going into the ocean with any would-be friends, she discovers that she is a direct descendant of battle-hardened krakens who have protected the sea from evil mermaids for generations, and is also destined to inherit the throne from her grandmother.
== Plot ==
In the seaside town of Oceanside, 16-year-old Ruby Gillman lives with her family, trying to fit in with humans despite being krakens. Her mother, Agatha, forbids her from going to prom because of its location being on a ship in the ocean. At Oceanside High School, Ruby initially refuses, but her friends Margot, Trevin, and Bliss convince her to ask out her crush, Connor. Before she can ask, she accidentally knocks Connor into the water. Ruby jumps in and saves him, but Connor believes he was saved by the new girl, Chelsea Van Der Zee, who tries to befriend Ruby. Ruby notices bioluminescent suction cups on her fingers and hides in the library. She attempts to call Agatha, but decides against it. To her confusion and horror, she transforms into a giant kraken and accidentally destroys the library after being startled by the librarian.
Ruby panics after being spotted by Chelsea and runs to the lighthouse to hide. Agatha notices and chases her, reuniting with her brother Brill along the way, who had been sent to retrieve Ruby by her grandmother after she sensed the Pulse emitted by Ruby’s transformation. Finally catching up with her, Agatha calms the distressed Ruby down and she shrinks down to her normal size. At the house, Arthur, Ruby's father, and Sam, Ruby's little brother, discover Ruby's transformation. Agatha explains how Ruby’s earlier mishap triggered the transformation and that she also turns into a giant kraken.
Angered that Agatha withheld the truth from her, Ruby sneaks out to meet her grandmother, the Warrior Queen of the Seven Seas, with a reluctant Brill's help. Grandmamah reveals to Ruby that she is a princess and next in line to take the throne, to her shock. She also explains that mermaids are actually the most malevolent creatures in the seas, contrary to popular belief, and that they found a powerful trident called The Trident of Oceanus to rule the ocean, and how her mother, the greatest Kraken warrior, trapped them for all eternity. Ruby declines the throne but is thankful to have finally learned the truth. On her way home, she is attacked and almost killed by an elderly sailor and Oceanside tour guide, Gordon Lighthouse. Chelsea, who reveals she is a mermaid, saves and helps Ruby escape, much to Gordon's disappointment.
Ruby tries to return to her normal life, but footage of her in her Kraken form becomes viral. She has a "Super Sea Girl Ditch Day" with Chelsea, who tells her that her mother, the mermaid Queen Nerissa, was supposedly killed trying to retrieve the Trident. She asks Ruby to get it to help unite the Krakens and Mermaids, so Ruby trains with Grandmamah to be powerful enough to get it.
On prom night, Ruby tells her mother about Chelsea, but Agatha, disappointed and outraged that Ruby made friends with a mermaid, forbids her from seeing her grandmother, leading to a frustrated Ruby running back to the ocean to grab the Trident for Chelsea while Agatha confronts Grandmamah, with both realizing that Nerissa never had a daughter and Chelsea is not who she says she is. Ruby succeeds in retrieving it but is betrayed by Chelsea, who reveals that she is Nerissa and uses Ruby to help her reclaim the trident to exact her revenge on the Krakens. Nerissa sheds her disguise and traps Ruby before going to destroy Oceanside. Agatha and Grandmamah try to fight her off while Brill finds a demoralized and wounded Ruby. After he encourages her, she goes to the surface to stop Nerissa. Nerissa overpowers Grandmamah and Agatha but is confronted by Ruby, who engages her in a duel over the trident, revealing her secret to her friends and Connor.
Nerissa gains the upper hand, but Ruby disarms her, realizing that the Trident can be destroyed with enough power. Ruby attempts to reason with Nerissa to no avail, so she, Agatha and Grandmamah combine their laser eyes to destroy the trident, defeating Nerissa and shrinking her to her normal size, where Gordon cages her. Ruby reconciles with her mother, reunites with her friends, and asks Connor out to prom, which he accepts, while Agatha and Grandmamah also reconcile.
Sometime later, everyone returns to their normal lives. The Gillmans become more popular and successful than before. Ruby and Connor become a couple, and she becomes the protector of Oceanside.
== Voice cast ==
* Lana Condor as Ruby Gillman, a 16-year old kraken girl who is desperate to fit in at Oceanside High and has the ability to turn into a giant kraken when she's in the ocean. She is described by the film's producer Kelly Cooney as "a really normal teenager".
* Toni Collette as Agatha Gillman, Ruby's overprotective real estate agent mother.
* Annie Murphy as Queen Nerissa, the evil queen of the mermaids with a vendetta against the Gillman family who poses as Chelsea Van Der Zee, the snobbish, popular new girl at Oceanside High.
* Colman Domingo as Arthur Gillman, Ruby's supportive father.
* Blue Chapman as Sam Gillman, Ruby's 7-year-old energetic and loyal younger brother.
* Jane Fonda as Grandmamah, the Warrior Queen of the Seven Seas, Ruby and Sam's maternal grandmother.
* Sam Richardson as Brill, Ruby's dim-witted and enthusiastic maternal uncle.
* Will Forte as Captain Gordon Lighthouse, a cowardly old sailor with a peg leg in Oceanside who works as a tour guide.
* Jaboukie Young-White as Connor, Ruby's skater-boy crush.
* Liza Koshy as Margot, a dramatic girl and Ruby's best friend.
* Eduardo Franco as Trevin, a gamer and one of Ruby's friends.
* Ramona Young as Bliss, a goth girl and one of Ruby's friends.
Additionally, Echo Kellum and Nicole Byer respectively voice Doug and Janice. Internet personalities Preston and Bri Arsement portray a home buyer and a tourist respectively. web film commentator and newcomer Juju Green voices a gym teacher. Sound designer Randy Thom voices Nessie and a confetti cannon. Newcomer Atticus Shaindlin voices Topher. Suzanne Buirgy voices Carol. And megastar Emma Chamberlain voices a reporter
Assorted students are voiced by Sydney Bell, Ricardo Hurtado, Qalil Ishmail, Merk Nguyen, Caleb Pierce, and Tiffany Wu.
== Production ==
=== Animation and design ===
Character designers Timothy Lamb & Guillermo "Willie" Real designed hundreds of different design iterations of Ruby and her family, eventually leading to the final look modeled by Charles Ellison, with additional tweaks by modeler Hannah Kang, supervisor Megan Lea Walker, and surface artists, Andy Harbeck and Rachael Yang.  Additional characters were designed by Craig Kellman, Annie Award winning character designer of The Bad Guys Taylor Krahenbahl, Julien Le Rolland and many others.
One challenge was the design of the hair for the film's villain Nerissa. The VFX department headed by Lawrence Lee created a Fluid Implicit Particle (FLIP) simulation which was used to simulate the character's interaction with the surrounding ocean. With an additional level set fillet generation technique was used to blend the ocean mesh with the water hair geometry. 
Two mixed-media sequences for the film were designed and animated by Richard Ramazinski.
DeMicco stated that he had intended to showcase more things, such as going more in-depth about the mermaids; "In our dreams, but maybe not in our budget. No, but there was an opportunity, but we had to make choices. And, so we always felt like if we had done that, we would've lost so much of the time, the personality of who is really getting to know Chelsea. And it worked well for our themes of the fact that they are all in hiding. And, there is this thing that she is the only one because it matched up really nicely with what Ruby's situation is and even with her mother, is that everybody in that movie, all the women in that movie are hiding something. And Ruby's the first one at the very end to stand up and take up as much space as she wants and declare to everybody who she really is and that she's gonna live her life this way. And I think that was really important to us".
== Release ==
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken debuted at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on June 15, 2023, and was theatrically released in the United States on June 30. The film was screened early on June 19, 2023, at various Regal Cinemas theaters as part of the chain's "Monday Mystery Movie" promotion.
In December 2022, Deputy Manager Director of Universal Pictures International Italy Massimo Proietti revealed that the film would be released in mid-2023. On March 16, 2023, following the release of the first trailer, it was revealed that the film would be released on June 30, 2023, taking over the original release date of Illumination's Migration.
== Soundtrack ==
Stephanie Economou composed the film's score. British singer-songwriter Mimi Webb performed the original song "This Moment", released on June 23 as a single, a week before the film's release. The song was a last minute addition after using a tempt song "As It Was" by Harry Styles in a particular scene in the film, where it was replaced by "This Moment", which was written by DallasK, Lauv, Jacob Kasher and Amanda “Kiddo AI” Ibanez, and was originally going to be performed by Lauv, but he passed on it and it was given to Webb. The soundtrack album was released on June 30, 2023, the same day as the theatrical release, in addition to the original song "Rise" performed by Freya Ridings, which plays during the end credits. She first performed the song live 3 days earlier at Dreamworks’s Glendale campus.
== Release ==
=== Theatrical ===
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken debuted at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on June 15, 2023, and was theatrically released in the United States on June 30. The film was screened early on June 19, 2023, at various Regal Cinemas theaters as part of the chain's "Monday Mystery Movie" promotion.
=== Home media ===
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken was released on Digital HD on July 18, 2023, 18 days after its theatrical release. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on September 26, 2023.
The film was released on the Yonatan Ashad Play and Peacock streaming services on October 20, 2023. As part of their 18-month deal with Netflix, the film is streaming on Peacock for the first four months of the pay-TV window, then will move to Netflix for the next ten, and then will return to Peacock for the remaining four.
== Trivia ==
* Unlike the real-life version, the trailers wouldn't spoil too much, the film would’ve explored more on the whole concept of krakens being good and mermaids being evil, and the film itself would have much more marketing so that it wouldn’t be a box office flop in this AU.
Category:Movies