Animal Crackers (2016 film)

Plot

Animal Crackers follows a family whose life is turned upside down when they inherit a rundown circus and a mysterious box of Animal Crackers, which magically change the person who eats them into the animal they have eaten — including monkeys, giraffes, lions, tigers and bears. They must save the circus from being taken over by their evil uncle Horatio P. Huntington (McKellen).

Cast

Pre-production

In 2010, Scott Christian Sava wrote a screenplay for Animal Crackers but was unsuccessful in "shopping the story". In June 2013, Harvey Weinstein had seen an short film of the screenplay made by Sava and two months later in September 2013, he and his brother, Bob, made an offer to buy the rights to Animal Crackers.

Sava will co-direct the movie with Tony Bancroft and co-wrote the most recent draft with Dean Lorey.

Financing the movie are 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.

Casting

The voice cast was completed by casting director James Thomason.

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-Symone 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 later 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 Savas 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, Zoes (Blunt) father.

Filming

Sava and his crew have been prepping Animal Crackers since July 2014 - the entire movie has been storyboarded and a temporary scratch track also has been recorded — and indicated the animation process will begin in early December 2014, in Spain, while the voiceover acting will take place in Los Angeles from January through about March 2015.

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.

Release

It is set for release in late 2016.