Sony Pictures Animation is pivoting from Poop to Jesus Christ for its next animated feature, The Star, a story about the first Christmas, told from the point of view of the animals.
The Star is the story of a donkey named Bo, who breaks free from the village mill and goes on an adventure with Ruth, a sheep, and Dave, a dove, as they somehow get mixed up in the nativity of Jesus. The studio released a trailer for the film today:
There are a couple significant differences between The Star and Sony’s first two releases of 2017 — Smurfs: The Lost Village and The Emoji Movie. First, the film wasn’t animated by Sony Imageworks, but by Cinesite in Montreal. Second, the film was made for a fraction of the budget on a typical Sony animation production; reports have claimed Star’s budget is $18 million compared to $50-70 million for films like Emoji, Smurfs, and the Hotel Transylvania series.
