'Amphibia' Creator Matt Braly Developing Fantasy-Adventure Film At Sony Pictures Animation
Like his series, the 'Gravity Falls' alum’s film will have a Thai lead as it draws on his own background
Oh my frog. Matt Braly is developing a new fantasy-adventure feature with Sony Pictures Animation, which he will direct. The creator of Disney Channel’s beloved animated series Amphibia has also written the script with very familiar friend Rebecca Sugar, creator of the beloved Cartoon Network Steven Universe franchise which also happens to be streaming on Disney+ due to its beta Hulu presence integration.
This is something of a return to the studio for Braly, as he also worked as a storyboard artist on the highly-acclaimed The Mitchells vs. The Machines, released to Netflix in 2021. The still-untitled film will draw on Braly’s cultural background and personal history, and will see a young boy who goes on an emotional journey to a fantastical world of Thai spirits in hopes of curing his illness.
The Voice Cast For Genndy Tartakovsky's R-Rated Animated Film 'Fixed' Has Been Announced
Legendary animator Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack, and Unicorn: Warriors Eternal, returns with New Line Cinema to Sony Pictures Animation for his and their first R-rated animated film Fixed. Not only was a first-look image released, but the voice cast was announced.
Braly and Sugar have long been collaborators. The Gravity Falls alum who won an Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Directing in an Animated TV/Broadcast Production for directing the second season episode “Northwest Mansion Mystery” has one storyboard artist credit on Steven Universe, the episode “Lars and the Cool Kids”. Sugar voiced a street performer in Amphibia’s Christmas episode “Froggy Little Christmas” performing a song they wrote for it. On Twitter, Braly said working on the film with Sugar and the studio has been “a dream come true so far”.
Amphibia ran on Disney Channel for three seasons and 58 episodes from June 2019 to May 2022. It did spawn a book, Marcy’s Journal – A Guide to Amphibia, which was released by Disney Books and Tokyopop last December, which Braly wrote with show writer Adam Colás. Just before Amphibia, Braly was a writer, storyboard artist and director on Big City Greens.
This is yet another animated feature for Sony Pictures Animation’s slate, one without any mapped releases following July’s removal of Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse from its original March 2024 position. While reintroduction to the schedule is inevitable, non-Spider-Man films like musical adventure K-Pop: Demon Hunters from directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, allegedly still going to Netflix as all of the studio’s 2021 output did; and Genndy Tartakovsky’s Fixed, starring Adam Devine, Idris Elba, Kathryn Hahn, and Bobby Moynihan are still waiting on release dates too. A long-awaited new Ghostbusters cartoon, which will also premiere on Netflix, is reconfirmed. The new animated movie announced alongside it last year was not mentioned by the source.
'The Casagrandes Movie' Releases On Netflix Next Year
Netflix has acquired the exclusive global rights to The Casagrandes Movie, the feature-length follow-up to the 2019-2022 Nicktoon The Casagrandes, a spin-off of The Loud House. The announcement came via TheWrap, midway through a puff piece about Netflix’s great reduction in if not full pivot away from in-house feature animation and toward partnerships wi…
Source: Deadline, Matt Braly
Nice. I've always found its fascinating to track connections between animated shows I like by following the c.v.'s of the people who work on them. This is another instance where that's happened.