Top Story: A Historic Box Office Weekend: Five Of The Top Ten Films Are Animated Features

The first Trolls film opened in 2016, netting a solid $346.8 million at the global box office, and propelling Justin Timberlake’s irritatingly catchy anthem “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” to an Oscar nomination.

Sure enough, the feeling hasn’t stopped at Dreamworks Animation: Trolls has spawned a spin-off Netflix series and a sequel, Trolls World Tour, whose second trailer arrived yesterday:

Like the original, this film revolves around elaborate musical numbers, but this time there’s a whole lot more of them. The trailer is more interested in showcasing this musical aspect than laying out the plot. The official synopsis lists the musical genres explored, as well as some of the real-life musical stars drafted into the voice cast:

In an adventure that will take them well beyond what they’ve known before, Poppy and Branch discover that they are but one of six different Troll tribes scattered over six different lands and devoted to six different kinds of music: Funk, Country, Techno, Classical, Pop, and Rock. Their world is about to get a lot bigger and a whole lot louder.

A member of hard-rock royalty, Queen Barb (Rachel Bloom), aided by her father King Thrash (Ozzy Osbourne), wants to destroy all other kinds of music to let rock reign supreme. With the fate of the world at stake, Poppy and Branch, along with their friends — Biggie (James Corden), Chenille (Caroline Hjelt), Satin (Aino Jawo), Cooper (Ron Funches), and Guy Diamond (Kunal Nayyar) — set out to visit all the other lands to unify the Trolls in harmony against Barb, who’s looking to upstage them all.

Other cast members not cited above include returning stars Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake, as well as Mary J. Blige, George Clinton, and Anderson Paak (representing the Funk tribe); Kelly Clarkson, Sam Rockwell, and Flula Borg (Country); J Balvin (Reggaeton), Ester Dean (Pop), Anthony Ramos (Techno), Kenan Thompson (Hip-Hop), Jamie Dornan (Smooth Jazz), and Gustavo Dudamel and Charlyne Yi (Classical).

The sequel is directed by Walt Dohrn, who served as co-director on the original Trolls, and Gina Shay returns to produce. The film is co-directed by David P. Smith and co-produced by Kelly Cooney Cilella, both of whom worked on the first feature. Theodore Shapiro (The Devil Wears Prada, 2016’s Ghostbusters) is scoring.

Trolls World Tour opens in U.S. theaters on April 17, 2020.

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