'Animal Crackers' Preview: A battered circus finds hope in some biscuit magic to save it from going bust
Nothing like a cheery animated fantasy to lift your spirits, and what's better than one which features the voices of Danny DeVito, John Krasinsky, Emily Blunt, Ian McKellen, Sylvester Stallone, no less? 'Animal Crackers' premiered at the Annecy French animation festival in 2017 and returns to Annecy 2020 Online (June 15-30) after being acquired by Netflix.
The film will begin streaming on July 24. The family drama revolves around a rather battered circus, where the owners hope to restore its popularity using magical animal crackers. Chesterfield the clown (voiced by Danny DeVito) explains, "every time you eat an animal cookie, a human cookie appears in the box. To change back, you just eat it." The IMDB synopsis reads, "A family must use a magical box of Animal Crackers to save a run-down circus from being taken over by their evil uncle Horatio P. Huntington."
'Animal Crackers' has been directed by Scott Christian Sava and Tony Bancroft and written by Sava and Dean Lorey. Bancroft had earlier told Variety, "It's a very family-based story… about sticking together as a family to accomplish something great and save this circus. There is a real value to what you [Writer Scott Christian Sava] wrote that resonated with people."
It has been a tough time for the filmmakers, as they did not get distributors in the beginning. During the 2017 Annecy premiere, the film’s prospects seemed positive, as the audience enjoyed it and it got good reviews. However, things took a turn for the worse. “(When) most people talk about making an independent movie, it’s usually the finances or actually making the film that’s the hardest thing,” Bancroft explained at the Annecy International Film Festival.
He added, “Those two things that should have been the hardest possible things for us went pretty smoothly. It was actually a third thing, getting distribution, where we hit our biggest snags with ‘Animal Crackers.’”
There were multiple hurdles along the way. Sava continued, “The studio we signed on with, who shall not be named, went bankrupt and we moved over to another studio. Within six months that company went bankrupt too, so we signed on with a third studio December 2017, and that company held onto the film for 14 months before they pretty much went under and we got the rights back.”
The tide turned when Netflix swooped in and saved the day. The film will begin streaming on platform from July 24.