Little Lily (film)

***Little Lily*** is a 2012 American computer-animated adventure musical comedy-drama film produced by 20th Century Fox Animation and based on the Fox Interactive and Electronic Arts video game series of the same name. The film was written and directed by Mike Bell from a screenplay by Mark Burton, David Lindsay-Abaire, and Lorne Cameron, and features the ensemble voice cast starring Sarah Silverman, Ryan Reynolds, Mandy Moore, Garry Shandling, Elizabeth Banks, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ozzy Osbourne, Michael Cera, Chris Rock, Sam Rockwell, Neil Patrick Harris, Kristin Chenoweth, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, John Goodman, Danny Glover, and Russell Brand.

In the film, three tiny humans, a little girl, a adventurous princess, and a brave guard who go on a big quest, to save their tiny world and their friends from the destruction by the giant Musbirks and an menacing rock star that threatens to steal the village's musical powers.

The film was released on March 23, 2012 in the United States, and received mixed reviews from critics who praised the animation and voice acting but criticized the screenplay and story. The film grossed $237 million against a $122 million budget, underperforming at the box office, forcing a write-down of $75 million. This resulted in a sequel entitled *Little Lily: World Tour*, set to be released in 2016 and be written by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, being cancelled.

The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD on October 19, 2012.

## Plot

In a world made of magical music powers, small, living, colorful humans who live in an almost perpetual state of happiness, singing, dancing, and having fun all day in a tiny enclosed village. However, they are discovered by the Musbirks, giant ugly miserable creatures, who can only feel happy by eating the humans. The Musbirks imprison the humans in their own village and eat them every year on a special occasion. The tiny humans, led by their king, King Roland, with his baby daughter, Princess Naomi, escape through tunnels on the day where the Musbirks finally eat the humans, when Prince Marco was going to eat his first human. Enraged, Marco's father King Frederick banishes Chef Charlotte, who was in charge of preparing for the special occasion. Chef Charlotte promises to leave and find the humans herself. Meanwhile, an baby girl named Lily is accidentally abandoned in the forest where subterranean trolls emerge from underground at night to scavenge for food where the trolls find a crying Lily along in a small basket. The trolls then decide to let Lily live among them, cared for by a talkative troll named Chester.

15 years later, the now-adult Princess Naomi throws a big party to celebrate the humans' escape, despite the warnings of the over-cautious Oliver, that loud and huge parties will attract the Musbirks. A "Zen" human named Philip (whom Naomi has a secret crush on) arrives and tells Oliver to start being happy instead of being miserable all the time; Oliver refuses. At the party, Oliver's warnings come true, when Chef Charlotte sees the fireworks and kidnaps Naomi's friends Quinn, Jasper with Mr. Squishy, Sophie with Sophia, Vinny, DJ Ally, Mr. Guzzle, along with Philip, despite Naomi trying to rescue him and King Roland. Chef Charlotte then takes the kidnapped humans and creatures back to Musbirk Kingdom. Meanwhile, as Lily and Chester travel to the village, they see Chef Charlotte with a giant bag, where the humans and creatures are in. Lily and Chester then head toward the village where the two find Naomi, where she is saddened after her friends were kidnapped. The three then introduce each other, and Lily and Chester accompany Naomi so that she can not only save her friends, but also try to prove she's worthy to become a hero, but however, Naomi tells Lily she's not brave enough to become a hero, nor save her friends, leaving Naomi to save them herself.

Alone inside his underground survival bunker, Oliver looks at a bunch of party invitations and gifts, indicating that he appreciates Naomi's offers of friendship, that he has an unrequited love for her, and that internally would like to have fun. Meanwhile, Naomi goes on a rescue mission alone, as no other human is willing to venture to the Musbirks' village, including Oliver. But later on, when Naomi gets surrounded by savage spiders, she is saved by Oliver, Lily, and Chester, who think she will not make it if she goes alone. Meanwhile, a villainous rock queen named Zoe, who has a plan to unite all the village's humans under her rock music, by stealing the tribe's gemstone and using it to destroy their music abilities. Lily, Chester, Naomi, and Oliver then venture out to Western Town, where they try to recruit the Country Cows, a tough country band, but the plan fails and the four get imprisoned by the band's leader Kelly due to their loud medley of pop songs. However, they are saved by a cowboy named Clifford, who busts them out of the town's prison, moved by Naomi's motives. Later, A jazz musician named John J., hired by Chef Charlotte as a bounty hunter, uses his music to make Lily, Naomi, and Oliver fall into a deep hallucination, but Clifford incapacitates John before Chester returns home due to Lily leading them to danger. The four then finally find the Musbirks' village and once inside their castle, Lily, Naomi, and Oliver witness Philip apparently get eaten by the now-King Marco, but Naomi remains hopeful that Philip survived. Lily, Naomi, and Oliver find the rest of the captured humans being guarded by a maid named Becky.

Naomi discovers Becky is secretly in love with King Marco, and offers to help her get a date with the king while trying to confirm if Philip is alive. While setting Becky up for the date with a musical number, Oliver refuses to sing and triggers an argument with Naomi, revealing that, as a child, his mother was captured and got eaten while trying to save him, because his singing compromised his location to Chef Charlotte. Oliver's complete guilt over his mother's death caused his own music abilities from his heart to be melted. Naomi comforts him with a hug, and Oliver decides to help Becky and Naomi's friends. Becky, disguised under the name of "Lady Lynn", gets her date with Marco at a ice rink and arcade restaurant and Marco asks her to be his "plus one" on the day where the humans get eaten. Naomi notices Philip being held captive inside the jewel adorning the king's mantle.

Having helped Becky, Lily and the humans attempt to rescue Philip from Marco's room and steal his jewel but discover that it is empty. Lily and the humans are captured by Chef Charlotte and Queen Zoe, and Naomi gets shocked to discover that Cowboy Clifford and Philip sold them out to the Musbirks to spare themselves from being eaten. Philip lures out every human back in Naomi's village (via her bell) and they are captured by Chef Charlotte, while Queen Zoe steals the village's gemstone and destroys it, making its musical powers being vanished for good. With all the humans captured, thrown into a pot, and soon to be eaten, a heartbroken Lily becomes sad and falls into despair after losing her dreams of becoming a hero, and loses hope as she and all the other humans lose color and have their music abilities melt in their hearts with the rest of the townsfolk blame her for the damages.

Oliver, then tries to apologize to Naomi by cheering her up, confessing his love for her, after regaining her colors and realizing that she has fallen in love with Oliver, and they both end up restoring all the humans' colors and music powers including Oliver's and Lily's as well. Luckily, Chester and the trolls save the humans shortly after, with Chester willing to sacrifice himself to the Musbirks. However, Lily cannot bring herself to abandon Chester after his sacrifice that is sure to doom his life, and as the humans escape they are later surrounded by Charlotte's guards and Queen Zoe, with Lily challenging Zoe to a race. Charlotte unleashes the castle's giant bug monsters where the plan backfires and the bugs take over the Musbirks' village. Lily participates in the race but is then attacked by Zoe. However, Lily's magical powers helps her teleport away from Zoe, leaving her to get eaten by a bug monster.

When King Roland points out that the bug monsters can be destroyed by a large beacon of light, Oliver decides to make a nearby volcano erupt, making a beacon. Oliver is confronted by Zoe, who is now mutated with the bug monster who devoured her. Oliver makes the volcano erupt and falls into its depths to sacrifice himself, but Lily saves him using her teleporting ability. The eruption lures and permanently destroys the bug monsters and Queen Zoe. However, back in the castle, the vengeful Chef Charlotte tries to kill the humans, but is knocked into a serving cart that is sent rolling out of the Musbirks' village. Charlotte is set on fire with Philip and Cowboy Clifford, while still in her pouch. Both species celebrate, renewing the life of the life tree. Naomi is then declared queen of the humans with Lily being finally hailed as a hero, and Lily, Chester, Naomi, and Oliver share a friendly hug.

In a mid-credits scene, Chef Charlotte, Cowboy Clifford, and Philip's cart stops rolling. Chef Charlotte prepares to eat both Philip and Clifford herself, but they soon find out they are on top of a monster, who opens his mouth and eats the three.

## Voice cast

* Sarah Silverman as Little Lily
* Ryan Reynolds as Oliver
* Mandy Moore as Princess Naomi
* Garry Shandling as Chester
* Michelle Pfeiffer as Chef Charlotte
* John Goodman as King Roland
* Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Prince Marco
* Elizabeth Banks as Queen Zoe
* Chris Rock as Quinn
* Michael Cera as Jasper
* Kristin Chenoweth as Becky
* Sam Rockwell as Cowboy Clifford
* Jared Brady as Mr. Guzzle
* Kristen Bell as DJ Ally
* Danny Glover as King Frederick
* Russell Brand as Philip
* Tara Strong and Grey Griffin as Sophie and Sophia
* Ozzy Osbourne as King Wesley
* Neil Patrick Harris as Frank the Fox
* David Webber as Mr. Squishy / Vinny / Tim / Todd
* Dee Bradley Baker as Spider / Announcer / Talking Ladybug
* Mark Walton as Steve

### Additional Voices

* Newell Alexander
* Rosemary Alexander
* Steve Alterman
* Stephen Apostolina
* Kirk Baily
* Mitch Carter
* June Christopher
* David Cowgill
* Chad Einbinder
* Donald Fullilove
* Jean Gilpin
* Jackie Gonneau
* Bridget Hoffman
* Karen Huie
* Rif Hutton
* Anne Lockhart
* Scott Menville
* Jonathan Nichols
* Paul Pape
* Devika Parikh
* Kelly M. Stables
* Pepper Sweeney
* Lisa Wilhoit
* Ruth Zalduondo

### Casting

On May 19, 2011, Fox announced that Sarah Silverman, Ryan Reynolds, Mandy Moore, Neil Patrick Harris, Garry Shandling, and Danny Glover had joined the cast of the film.

*More coming soon!*

### Music

*Main article: Little Lily (film)/Soundtrack*
Henry Jackman composed the original soundtrack for the film, which was released on March 6, 2012, by Interscope Records. The rest of the cast contributed to the film's soundtrack, which also features guest appearances from Earth, Wind & Fire and Ester Dean.

## Release

*Little Lily* was initially scheduled to be released on February 10, 2012, but was pushed back two months later to April 6, 2012 before being pushed back to its current date of March 23, 2012. *Little Lily* premiered at the Regency Village Theater in Los Angeles, California on March 2, 2012. The American release followed on March 23, 2012. The United Kingdom release was later released on April 27, 2012.

*Little Lily* was originally planned to have a IMAX 3D release, but was cancelled and only received non-IMAX presentations and then eventually, *The Hunger Games* took over the IMAX screenings.

### Marketing

A teaser trailer of the film was shown exclusively before select theatrical screenings of *Rio* on April 15, 2011. It was later released online two weeks later on April 28, 2011.
The film's official trailer was released on June 22, 2011, and was attached into *Cars 2* in theaters two days later. The film's final trailer which included The Who song "Baba O'Riley", debuted on November 1, 2011, and was attached into theatrical screenings of *Crystal: Coming of Darkness*. An exclusive sneak peek (presented by Sarah Silverman, Ryan Reynolds, and Mandy Moore) was also released online on February 7, 2012.

Tie-ins with McDonald's, Airheads, Fisher-Price, Ziploc, and Best Buy, were used to promote the film. A balloon themed after Little Lily debuted at the 2011 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Publishers Dalmatian Press and Ape Entertainment released books tied to the film.

### Home media

*Little Lily* was released in the United States and Canada on DVD and Blu-ray on October 19, 2012, with a standalone single-disc DVD release being released on that same day.

### Video game

*Main article: Little Lily (2012 video game)*
A video game based on the film was released on March 20, 2012, for the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, and the Xbox 360.

## Reception

### Box office

*Little Lily* grossed $101.1 million in the United States and Canada and $136.2 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $237 million.

In North America, *Little Lily* opened on Friday, March 23, 2012, with 3,874 theaters, grossing $7.6 million on its first day, ranking second behind *The Hunger Games*. It ended up opening to $26.6 million, finishing second at the box office behind *The Hunger Games'*s $152 million debut.

Deadline Hollywood reported that before the film's release, Fox was hoping that *Little Lily* would duplicate the opening box office successes of *Alaina Gleen* and *Crystal*. The film's opening was the lowest debut for a Fox Animation Century City film since the theatrical release of *History Island* back in 2004. Due to its high production budget and marketing costs, the studio was forced to take an $75 million write-down. As a result of this, in July 2012, the studio announced it was laying off 150 employees as part of a company-wide restructuring.

### Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 51% based on 187 reviews with an average rating of 5.4/10. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 44 out of 100 based on 49 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

## Transcripts

### Main

To see the main transcript of the film, click here.

### Trailers

To see the transcript for the trailers of the film, click here.

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