Veteran director Vicky Jenson, best known as one of two helmers of Oscar winning “Shrek,” returned to the storybook world for her latest project: Skydance Animation’s sophomore feature, the musical “Spellbound,” which is now available on Netflix. But it was its contemporary theme that attracted her to the project.
“The story was about a family going through a very difficult time and coming out on the other end with love and better understanding — even in a hard situation, the family itself, it’s bound by love, regardless of whether they end up together or not by the end of the movie,” she says.
In the story, a spell transforms the King and Queen of Lumbria (Javier Bardem and Nicole Kidman) into monsters, and their tenacious daughter Ellian, voiced by Rachel Zegler, take on the responsibly to save her family.
“She is the hero,” Jenson says of her young protagonist. “She believes that it’s up to her to break the spell, and in that allegory in real life that it’s often true with kids, they feel like [for instance] if I just do better in school, then things will be better at home. … It falls on their shoulders, and the rest of the family doesn’t realize that’s happening.
“There’s a danger in putting the responsibility on the kids to pull the family together. And that was a big challenge for us, the story really is asking the parents to do the work,” she continues, emphasizing that the movie isn’t created to vilify anybody in this situation. “It’s not anyone’s specific fault, but it’s something that happens.”
Animation was completed at Skydance’s studios in Madrid and Connecticut. Looking back, perhaps its biggest challenge was the concept of the darkness in the story, which ultimately was depicted as a sort of tornado. “We didn’t want to vilify [Ellian’s] anger,” Jenson explains. “We all have feelings of being hurt or being wronged or being misunderstood, or not being listened to or not being seen, and those feelings aren’t something to push away, but you don’t want to let your life be overtaken by them where you can’t see anything else. Unlocking how that darkness worked in the movie was what was probably the most tricky.”
The original idea for “Spellbound” was already at the studio when she joined Skydance Animation, but the plan to make it a musical came months later from then-Skydance Animation president Bill Damaschke. “We are at dinner one night, and he just goes, ‘What about making it a musical? The feelings are so big. You might as well, you know, sing them.’”
That conversation was the spark that led to teaming with legendary Disney composer Alan Menken and “Tangled” lyricist Glenn Slater on a collection of songs including ballad ”The Way Things Were Before,” the “I want” song performed by Zegler; and “I Could Get Used to This,” a playful number performed by John Lithgow, who voices the castle advisor, which also “speaks to the message of the movie.”
In making the movie, Jenson also had support and input from a sort of Skydance creative brain trust that included post-Pixar animation head John Lasseter and Oscar winning directors Brad Bird (“The Incredibles} and Rich Moore (“Zootopia”). Bird’s “Ray Gun” will be the studio’s third animated feature and Moore is working on an untitled Jack and the Beanstalk adaptation.
With a nod to her time at “Shrek” studio Dreamworks Animation, Jenson notes, “This is the second time I’ve been with a studio as it’s building up, and it’s like a wild wild West initially, which is really fun to be part of.”
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