Another buzzy animation project has been plucked off the Netflix slate, with the news that hand-drawn animated feature Ember will not go forward at the streamer. It is a bittersweet parting, as the project is helmed by Sergio Pablos, who wrote and directed the streamer’s Oscar-nominated, BAFTA- and Annie-winning first original animated feature, Klaus.
Pablos retains the rights to shop the project, which was underway at his The SPA Studios in Spain, to other outlets.
According to Variety, sources say that like other titles scuppered this year — including Ava DuVernay’s Wings of Fire adaptation, Chris Nee’s treatment of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s Antiracist Baby and the Mark Osborne/Adam Kline collab With Kind Regards from Kindergarten (originally announced at Fox Animation in 2017) — the streamer’s decision was “creatively driven” and not financially, pointing out that the long development process that brings animation to screens is often sidetracked or stymied.
Ember was announced as part of a slate of European-produced films and series for Netflix Animation ahead of the Annecy animation festival in June. Here’s how Netflix described it at the time:
From the BAFTA award-winning and Academy Award-nominated Klaus director Sergio Pablos and The SPA Studios comes Ember, an epic hand-drawn adventure tale of humankind’s quest for fire told through the eyes of young Dikika who embarks on an impossible race to a distant volcano to retrieve the precious spark that will save her tribe.
Pablos is an animation veteran with over three decades of experience, rising to prominence as an animator, character designer and supervising animator through Disney favorites including A Goofy Movie, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules and Tarzan as well as Space Jam. More recent credits include Rio, Ferdinand, and exec producing Smallfoot and Despicable Me.
Netflix this year released several critically acclaimed and audience approved animated features aimed at kids and families. The 2022 feature animation slate included The Sea Beast, My Father’s Dragon, Apollo 10 1/2, Scrooge: A Christmas Carol, Wendell & Wild and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. Projects in development include High in the Clouds, The Monkey King, Escape from Hat, The Magician’s Elephant and Jorge R. Gutierrez’s I, Chihuahua.
[Source: Variety]
