Illumination’s ‘Migration’ Takes Flight With First Full Trailer
In recent years, animation studios have been attracted to cg family films starring birds like a duck to water. There’s Rio, Storks, Free Birds, The Angry Birds Movie, Happy Feet, Penguins of Madagascar, Surf’s Up, Duck Duck Goose, and at least a half-dozen others foreign entries from the last decade.
This is a source of mild curiosity for me. Is this based on some kind of market research that finds children desire animated films with birds? Is it because cg birds are easier to animate? Is it because of the cinematographic possibilities of showing flight in cg animation? I mean, I like birds as much as the next person, but the sheer amount of bird cg films defies my comprehension of animation trends. While I don’t have any answers, I can report that there’s yet another cg film with our fine feathered friends launching in theaters on December 22: Universal’s Migration.
Production studio Illumination is also behind Minions, Despicable Me, The Secret Life of Pets, and Sing. They’ve rarely had a box office miss and their latest film, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, is currently the year’s highest-grossing film worldwide. So we can only trust that they’ve got a good reason for making this film.
Universal released the first full trailer for Migration today, following a teaser last April. Here it is:
The film is directed by Benjamin Renner, a director on French features Ermest & Celestine and The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales. Interestingly, Renner himself is no stranger to cg bird animation. Before he directed those other films, he designed a 2014 French feature called Yellowbird (known in France as Gus, petit oiseau, grand voyage).
Renner was invited to work on Yellowbird on the strength of his graduation film A Mouse’s Tale made while a student at La Poudrière. Renner shared artwork and discussed his approach to designing Yellowbird in this blog post from 2014.
It’s a safe bet that Renner got the Migration gig in part on the strength of his earlier design work on Yellowbird. On Migration, he’s working from a script by Mike White, creator of The White Lotus and screenwriter of School of Rock. As far as we know, White has never been involved in avian animation before.
Per Universal, the film offers “elevated, expressionist artistry and Illumination’s signature subversive humor and authentic heart, unforgettable characters and joyful soundtrack.” Here is the official studio synopsis:
The Mallard family is in a bit of rut. While dad Mack (Kumail Nanjiani) is content to keep his family safe paddling around their New England pond forever, mom Pam (Elizabeth Banks) is eager to shake things up and show their kids—teen son Dax and duckling daughter Gwen—the whole wide world. After a migrating duck family alights on their pond with thrilling tales of far-flung places, Pam persuades Mack to embark on a family trip, via New York City, to tropical Jamaica. As the Mallards make their way South for the winter, their well-laid plans quickly go awry. The experience will inspire them to expand their horizons, open themselves up to new friends and accomplish more than they ever thought possible, while teaching them more about each other—and themselves—than they ever imagined.
Migration is co-directed by Guylo Homsy (head of layout and cinematography for the Sing franchise), edited by Christian Gazal (Happy Feet, Peter Rabbit), and production designed by Colin Stimpson (The Secret Life of Pets 2). Illumination founder and CEO Chris Meledandri produces.
Other voice cast include Awkwafina, Carol Kane, Keegan-Michael Key, David Mitchell, Danny DeVito, Caspar Jennings, and Tresi Gazal.
If cg birds don’t do it for you, Aardman’s stop-motion bird film Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is also currently scheduled to debut on Netflix in December.