This interview was originally published on ComicBookMovie.com.
From DreamWorks Animation comes a new adaptation of a literary sensation, Peter Brown's beloved, award-winning, #1 New York Times bestseller, The Wild Robot.
The epic adventure follows the journey of a robot - ROZZUM unit 7134, "Roz" for short - that is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and must learn to adapt to the harsh surroundings, gradually building relationships with the animals on the island and becoming the adoptive parent of an orphaned gosling.
The Wild Robot is written and directed by three-time Oscar nominee Chris Sanders - the writer-director of DreamWorks Animation's How to Train Your Dragon and Disney's Lilo & Stitch - and is produced by Jeff Hermann (Kung Fu Panda).
We had the good fortune to speak with Chris and Jeff last week to learn how they created and delivered yet another instant animated classic. The filmmakers talk us through how they approached this adaptation, the importance of finding the right voice cast, and what it is about animation they think resonates with people.
Chris also discusses the evolution of Roz's appearance, creating Universal Dynamics, and the immense legacy of Stitch, a character he created and continues to voice.
You can check out our full interview for The Wild Robot in the player below.
Chris, you’ve created characters like Stitch and Toothless who have stood the test of time - was there added pressure on this one knowing you were adapting a character who exists on the page or did it help to have those foundations to build on?
Chris: I think we always feel the normal amount of responsibility, especially in a case like this where it’s an existing book. Peter Brown created the character, so I think we were always trying to do something. In the back of our minds, we always wanted Peter to be happy with what we did so being true to his book, adapting what we needed to adapt in order to get his vision, message, and spirit and tone of his story up on screen. There are a lot of kids that read this book at a certain grade level, so there are a lot of people familiar with the story when they came into the theater so that’s always on our minds…in a good way.
Jeff, you were part of launching Kung Fu Panda and now The Wild Robot, a property many people are hoping will be another big franchise. What does it mean to you to bring a movie like this into theaters?
Jeff: This kind of movie, we have all recognised as a rarity to get in your career. You’re lucky to get one of these because this movie is so…the source material is so special and fully formed in the sense it has all the right elements we love about movie. On top of it, it has this bed of relevant themes everyone can relate to. It’s all robots and animals being robots and animals, which we don’t always get to portray. I think all those things really helped make this extra special and because of that - we always give our all to these endeavours, but somehow, this one got even more out of than we thought was possible.
Chris, this is a stunning movie and I loved the blend of nature and machinery. I noticed while watching that Roz goes from being CG to painted as the story progresses; could you maybe talk more about that?
Chris: Oh, I’m really glad you picked up on that. Yeah, there are 30+ versions of Roz that we trade out from beginning to end as she becomes a citizen of the island and a denizen of the place. We always understood that one of the important things with Roz is she’s getting damaged the more time she spends on the island because she’s not where she’s supposed to be. Ideally, she’d be in this place that’s very controlled and planned where she’d fit it, but on the island she doesn’t, so she’s getting more damaged all the time. That accelerates when she reaches a point where she’s trying to get Brightbill to fly; so, all this damage she’s taking is increasing in its scale and frequency. We always like the idea that, even though she’s getting more damaged on the outside, she’s getting stronger on the inside. It was something on our minds from the very beginning as it’s really part of Peter Brown’s book. I was very excited about the idea that, in the third act, by the time Universal Dynamics shows up to collect Roz that they would be relatively shocked by the condition she’s in. That’s why we staged it in the way we did so that when Vontra, the representative from Universal, floats out of the spaceship looking for Roz, Roz steps forward and steps into this pool of light so we have this wonderful, thematic reveal of the state she’s in at that point of the story.
This movie has an amazing cast led by actors like Lupita Nyong'o, Kit Connor and Pedro Pascal, and as a Star Wars fan, I’ve got to mention Mark Hamill. You’ve got a great story and amazing visuals, but how important is it to find the right leads to make a movie like this one work as well as it does?
Jeff: It’s so vital because everything depends on the quality of their performance and the quality of their voices, and how well those voices complement each other when they’re all put together. This cast is truly spectacular. They’re all such incredibly strong actors and able to convey the depth of emotion that this story demanded. It’s rare to get the calibre of this cast together. They were all in disbelief that they were all in the same film together and I think it really paid off because all of these characters really do come across as fully realised thinking, feeling characters. You’re not thinking about the people voicing them when you’re listening to them.
Chris: Oh my gosh, yeah, I feel the very same way. As people fell into place and our actors said yes to the roles that they were offered, it just kept getting better and better and better. I think this is an extraordinary cast and we’ve been able to get them together in combinations as we’ve travelled around for promotions, but I don’t think every single person has been together yet.
Jeff: We’ve never had them all together.
Chris: We were close! We got a few pairings which was really, really fun and both Jeff and I got to be there as Kit Connor met one of his idols for the very first time, Bill Nighy. That was cool.
While I’ve got you Chris, Stitch’s popularity these past few years has gone through the roof all over again. How excited are you to reintroduce him to the world next year with the live-action movie?
Chris: Yeah, he’s become more popular than ever. Something I’ve been aware of now [Laughs] since the film’s release. He was huge when the film came out, but he’s everywhere now. It’s really cool.
It seems that no matter your age, there’s something about animation that really resonates with all of us. The Wild Robot is a really wonderful example, but what is it about this genre do you both think makes it so impactful?
Chris: I’ve always wondered what it is about animation that has an ability to endure. I think it’s just the way we see graphic images as opposed to photographic images, if that makes any sense. A long time ago, my dad told me, ‘You take a photograph and put it on the wall and eventually you might stop looking at it but a painting you look at forever.’ I think there is something about things produced by human hands that is illustrated that it has an incredibly direct communication. It has a directness that I think is unequalled and I think it’s also disarming. There’s something friendly about it. It’s this wonderfully non-threatening thing because animation is friendly-looking. Animation allows you to tell some very emotional stories to a broad audience.
Jeff: Absolutely. I think all forms of art have this emotional response when you engage with it, when you react to it, and when you look at it. The best art does that. It transports you to somewhere you can’t go. Realism and photography are incredible for what they are but art and animation can take you to places and send you to realms and characters and feelings that we don’t get to experience all the time.
Chris, so much of this movie is rooted in nature until we go full sci-fi upon visiting Universal Dynamics. How much fun was it to balance those elements?
Chris: Yeah, it’s weird that I’ve worked on two films that are actually sci-fi [Laughs]. I hadn’t thought about that until a few days ago. With this world that Roz was supposed to land in, we basically just did the opposite of where she was. We took everything on the island is, which is chaos, dangerous, and completely uncontrolled and open to the weather, and made this Universal Dynamics-designed city the opposite of that. It’s obviously been pre-planned because everything fits together and there’s a harmony to everything. In general, it looks pretty optimistic and swell. I also wanted to tap into not a dystopian future but more the kind of future I was promised when I was a kid when I watched TV and went to Disneyland and saw Tomorrowland and everything was going to be better and improved on. I still look forward to that [Laughs]. This is one of the reasons we went to Sid Mead for the inspiration of the styling. There were a couple of futurists who pre-visualised that kind of world and it never wore off to me. It always seemed like an amazing place and still a potential destination. We thought, ‘Yeah, let’s make that the place Roze was supposed to be.’
The Wild Robot is now available to watch at home digitally from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.