DreamWorks Animation Announces New Film ‘Orion And The Dark’ Will Be Released On Netflix Next Year
DreamWorks Animation Announces New Film ‘Orion And The Dark’ Will Be Released On Netflix Next Year
The film, written by Charlie Kaufman, is the studio's second straight-to-streamer release
It’ll be ten years this December when DreamWorks Animation began supplying Netflix with animated (and eventually hybrid) series to jumpstart their kids and family original programming, with Turbo FAST. Today, despite having expanded its output to Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Peacock, and Apple TV+, even with some shifting from Netflix, the partnership continues with six currently running series including Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight and Gabby’s Dollhouse. Next year, as announced at Annecy International Animation Film Festival the partnership reaches into feature films for just the second time with Orion and the Dark.
Based on the book by Emma Yarlett, the film is about Orion, a normal but shy and unassuming boy with a crush. However, he’s also an incredibly anxious adolescent, taken by irrational fears of bees, dogs, the ocean, falling off of a cliff, cell phone signals, and murderous gutter clowns. Most of all, he’s afraid of the dark. Its physical manifestation pays Orion a visit, whisking him away around the world to show there’s nothing to fear. The more fun they have together, Orion must decide if he can stop letting fear control his life and finally embrace the joy of living.
The film stars Jacob Tremblay as Orion and Black Bird star Paul Walter Hauser as Dark. It is directed by Sean Charmatz and is written by Charlie Kaufman, writer of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. After story credits on films such as Trolls World Tour and The Angry Birds Movie 2, Orion and the Dark is Charmatz’s directorial debut. Kaufman’s most recent film was 2020’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Peter McCown produces with Executive producers Walt Dohrn and Bonnie Arnold.
While Disney infamously sent three Pixar films straight to Disney+ during the pandemic, DreamWorks Animation has only had one prior feature film released directly and exclusively to streaming: Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans, which was released in July 2021. That case was rather reasonable, however, as that film served as the grand finale of three Netflix original DreamWorks Animation series, the Tales of Arcadia: Trollhunters, 3Below, and Wizards.
Source: Deadline