Vicky Jenson, known for her directorial debut Sherk, is set to direct an upcoming 3D animation called Spellbound. The film is a musical fantasy, with a spell-bound cast including Nicole Kidman, Jordan Fisher, Nathan Lane, Javier Bardem, Jeniffer Lewis, and John Lithgow. Spellbound is a Skydance Animation and Apple Original Films production that will be distributed by Apple+.
The film follows Princess Ellian who tries to keep her family together after a mysterious spell transforms her parents into monsters. Amidst the chaos the King and Queen are causing in the castle, Ellian must handle taking care of her parents and deal with how they can’t even remember her own name. Variety got an insight as Jenson talked about the film. Jenson expressed to the audience in Annecy about Spellbound, “Why a musical? People always ask that. In theatre, they say that when emotions are too big to speak about, you sing about them. And when they are too big to sing about, you dance.”
According to Jenson, there aren’t enough films that cover loss from a child’s perspective, and she hopes to present it in Ellian’s journey to save her family and kingdom. “It’s rare to experience loss from the side of the child,” she explains, “but we lose our parents too, at all stages in life. Even after six years on the movie, it still makes me want to cry,”
To express those strong emotions Jenson gifted the audience with the first listen to new original songs by the Oscar-winning composer Alan Menken and lyricist Glenn Slater, as Jenson reunites them to create magic for this musical fantasy with the performance by West Side Story star Rachel Zegler.
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