DreamWorks Animation has adapted Peter Brown’s middle grade novel, The Wild Robot, and if the trailer released today is any indication, it looks like it will be one worth watching.
Not only does it come from writer-director Chris Sanders, whose previous credits include How to Train Your Dragon, The Croods, and Lilo & Stitch, but it also features a stellar voice cast, beautiful imagery, and a robot that may or may not remind you of Mosscap from Becky Chambers’ Monk & Robot series.
Here’s the official synopsis for 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.
And here’s that voice cast I hinted at above: Lupita Nyong’o (Us, The Black Panther) is robot Roz; Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us, The Mandalorian) is fox Fink; Catherine O’Hara (Schitt’s Creek, Best in Show) is opossum Pinktail; Bill Nighy (Living, Love Actually) is goose Longneck; Kit Connor (Heartstopper, Rocketman) is gosling Brightbill; and Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once) is Vontra, a robot that will intersect with Roz’s life on the island. We’ll also apparently hear Mark Hamill (Star Wars, of course), Matt Berry (What We Do in the Shadows), and Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction) as well in some shape, way, or form.
The Wild Robot premieres in theaters on September 20, 2024. And remember, as the end of the released clip reminds us: “Sometimes to survive, we must become more than we were programmed to be.”
Check out the promised trailer below, which rudely made me cry:
