Animal Crackers (2017 film)
Animal Crackers is a 2017 3D computer-animated comedy-fantasy film directed by Scott Christian Sava and Tony Bancroft, and written by Sava and Dean Lorey, based on the animal-shaped cookie and loosely based on the graphic novel by Sava. The film stars the voices of Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Danny DeVito, Ian McKellen, Sylvester Stallone, Patrick Warburton, Raven-Symoné, Harvey Fierstein, Gilbert Gottfried, Tara Strong, James Arnold Taylor, Kevin Grevioux, and introducing Lydia Rose Taylor. It tells the story of a family who comes across a box of magical animal crackers that turns anyone  that consumes into the animal the cracker represents which comes in handy in saving the circus that the family was associated with. The film premiered at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on June 12, 2017. It was released in China on July 21, 2018. It was initially set to be released in the United States but faced multiple delays due to being picked up by various distributors, who faced financial difficulties. It was officially released on Netflix on July 24, 2020 and received mixed reviews from critics. Plot. In 1963, brothers Bob and Horatio Huntington run a traveling circus  together, doing well in spite of their vastly different personalities. After a show, the circus' resident gypsy fortune teller Esmerelda presents her beautiful niece, Talia, to her employers, asking them to give her a job. Bob and Horatio are both immediately smitten with the lovely woman, but her affections are solely for Bob. When the pair announce their plans to marry, Horatio becomes furious and delivers an ultimatum to his brother to choose either him or Talia. Bob marries Talia and Esmerelda gives them a mysterious box as a wedding gift, which allows them to open a new circus. Buffalo  Bob's Rootin' Tootin' Animal Circus, known for animals performing amazing and seemingly impossible feats. Years later, Bob's son Owen marries his childhood friend Zoe at the circus where they had first met as kids. Following the initial excitement however, Owen soon discovers he now has to work as a taste tester for Zoe's father Mr. Woodley at his dog biscuit factory. Fifteen years later, Horatio, whose luck has taken a serious downturn since his fight and split with Bob, sneaks into Bob and Talia's dressing rooms, trying to find the secret to the magic animals, and  accidentally starts a fire which apparently kills Bob and Talia after being startled by a bloodhound named Old Blue and a cat named Zena. Their funeral is attended by Owen, Zoe, and their daughter Mackenzie. Horatio makes an unexpected visit and announces that he'll be taking over the circus. Huntington and his henchmen Mario Zucchini, Samson, Stabby, and El Diablo start a fight, causing the Huntingtons to leave. Before they leave, circus pets Old Blue and Zena give the Huntingtons the mysterious box, they later discover it holds animal cracker cookies. Owen eats one and turns into a hamster . The Huntingtons return to the circus to figure out how this happened. They learn from clown Chesterfield that the animal crackers will turn the user into the animal they eat, but it contains only one human cookie to change them back. Later, he tells them they inherited the circus. Zoe is excited, but Owen, determined to please Mr. Woodley, decides to continue his job. Zoe restores the circus while Owen stays at the dog biscuit factory. Frustrated that Zoe quit her job, Mr. Woodley begins to consider Brock, an egotistical saboteur, as her replacement. Buffalo Bob's Rootin' Tootin' Animal  Circus reopens, but is a disaster upon the discovery of no animals. Owen reluctantly decides to eat the animal crackers and performs stunts as an animal. By the end of the day, Owen grows to like it and decides to quit his job. As his finishes packing up though, Brock unwittingly eats one of the cookies and turns into a drill. To catch up with him, Owen turns into a lion, but Brock gets captured by Mario Zucchini, who also steals cookie pieces. Upon returning home, Owen soon discovers he has lost the human cookie and will remain an animal  forever. He attempts to adapt to life as a certain animal but has little success. Binkley, an employee of Mr. Woodley who's trying to create a new type of dog biscuit, discovers the animal crackers and persuades Mr. Woodley to attend the circus. At one performance, Horatio appears and offers Owen's gorilla form his human cookie (which Mario had also unknowingly stolen) in exchange for the circus. Owen refuses thinking that remaining an animal will at least keep his family together, but he is forced into the deal by Horatio's hybridized henchmen as they help Horatio force -feed him the human cookie. The circus performers then come across the scene and a fight breaks out. With his henchmen defeated, Horatio eats some crackers and turns into a chimera. He is confronted by Old Blue and Zena who reveal themselves as Bob and Talia, alive but forever trapped in animal form due to the destruction of their human cookies in the fire. They ask Horatio to redeem himself, but he refuses. Horatio flies up, grasping them. Owen, Zoe, and Mackenzie, and the circus performers work together to save Bob and Talia. Upon capturing Horatio, Owen turns him into  a hamster as Bullet Man quotes "In Memoriam A.H.H." from Alfred Lord Tennyson. The henchmen are caged and Chesterfield gleefully tells them their human cookies are in pieces as a side-effect of eating the broken pieces and it will take him awhile to figure out whose parts go to whom. Mario just tells Chesterfield to take his time with the others in agreement while Horatio demands to be released. Having witnessed the performance and Brock still being in drill form, Mr. Woodley reevaluates his views on both Owen and the circus. With Binkley, he decides to create a new  circus souvenir using her failed experiments: animal crackers that cause the eater's skin to temporarily take on the color and patterns of the animal whose cracker they eat. Owen and Zoe now work happily at the circus with Owen consuming the dragon animal cracker. Additional voices by Cam Clarke, Lara Cody, Debi Derryberry, Jessica Gee, Grant George, Max Koch, Brianne Siddall, and Jennie Yee Production. Development and writing. In 2011, Scott Christian Sava wrote a comic book for "Animal Crackers" but was unable to garner any interest. In June 2013, Harvey Weinstein had seen a short film of the  screenplay made by Sava and two months later the Weinstein brothers made an offer to buy the rights to "Animal Crackers". Sava co-directed the movie with Tony Bancroft and co-wrote the screenplay with Dean Lorey. Financing the movie were executive producers Mu Yedong on behalf of Wen Hua Dongrun Investment Co., La Peikang, board chairman of China Film Co., and Sam Chi for Landmark Asia. "Despicable Me" character designer, Carter Goodrich, was hired in October 2014. Pre-production. The voice cast was completed by casting director Jamie Thomason who also serves as the voice director. In the last  week of October and throughout November, 2014, Sava via the "Animal Crackers" Facebook page, there were sneak peeks to the look of some characters along with announcing the voice cast for those characters Kevin Grevioux as Samson the Strong Man, James Arnold Taylor as Buffalo Bob, Tara Strong as Talia, Harvey Fierstein as Esmerelda the Fortune Teller, Gilbert Gottfried as Mario Zucchini, and Raven-Symoné as Binkley. On November 6, 2014, Blue Dream Studios announced Sylvester Stallone, Danny DeVito, and Ian McKellen as lead voice cast. On February 3, 2015, John Krasinski and Kaley Cuoco joined the cast as Owen  and Zoe Huntington, respectively. On March 30, 2015, Emily Blunt replaced Cuoco due to a scheduling conflict. "When I was writing "Animal Crackers" I had specific voices in my head. Certain characters I wrote with actors in mind. Horatio was always Sir Ian McKellen. Brock was totally Patrick Warburton. Bullet-Man could be no one else but Stallone! To find out that each and every one of these actors have agreed to come on board this film and bring these characters to life… I'm flipping out," said Sava. It was announced via Sava's Facebook page that his son , Brendan, would play 12-year-old Owen Huntington and his wife, Donna, would play the Fat Lady. On May 22, 2015, it was revealed that Wallace Shawn had been cast as Mr. Woodley, Zoe's (Blunt) father. Animation. The film's animation is created on Autodesk Maya, and rendered on Arnold, in an effort to save costs, it was produced in Blue Dream Studios Spain an 5,000-square foot house Valencia that the director Sava founded In early 2014, more than 120 animators worked on the film. Filming. On January 27, 2015, Sava announced on Facebook via the "Animal Crackers  page that first day of studio sessions with the actors" began in Los Angeles. Music. The film's original score was composed by Bear McCreary, and its soundtrack includes original songs by Toad the Wet Sprocket, Huey Lewis and the News, Howard Jones, and Michael Bublé. Score. All tracks written and composed by Bear McCreary. Release. Theatrical. The film had its world premiere in competition at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival on June 12, 2017. The film was originally set to be released on April 28, 2017 by Relativity Media, however, a financial crisis within the company prevented them  from releasing the film. It was then set to be released on September 1, 2017 by upstart film studio Serafini Releasing before they also shut down. A few months later, in November 2017, it was announced that Entertainment Studios would distribute the film worldwide. In April, Sava posted on Facebook that the film was set for a release date of August 10, 2018. The deal with Entertainment Studios was dropped in June 2018. Eventually, the distribution rights were bought by Netflix and the film was released on July 24, 2020 on the platform. It was the second-most streamed film  on its opening weekend. Reception. Critical response. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 64% based on 22 reviews, with an average rating of 6.00/10. It had a critical consensus which read: ""Animal Crackers" is far from the most distinctive animated fare, but its wacky humor and zippy speed make it a decent diversion for younger viewers." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 60 out of 100 based on 5 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".