The recently launched animation division of Skydance Media, formed in partnership with Madrid’s Ilion Animation, has brought on a couple of DreamWorks Animation alums for its first two feature projects in the works, Hollywood Reporter reveals. Annie Award winner Vicky Jenson (Shrek, Shark Tale) will helm an untitled coming-of-age fantasy due in 2019, while Alessandro Carloni (Kung Fu Panda 3) will tackle a comedy flick working-titled Luck.
Jenson’s project is being written by Linda Woolverton, who penned classic Disney animated movies Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King as well as the live-action remix Maleficent. The untitled film will center on on a teenager named Elian who comes of age while using her magic powers to save her family when opposing forces of light and darkness threaten her kingdom. Woolverton is producing with David Ellison and Dana Goldberg for Skydance, and Ilion’s Ignacio Pérez Dolset and Jose San Román.
Jenson won an Annie Award for feature directing for Shrek, which she directed with Andrew Adamson. She also directed Shark Tale with Bibo Bergeron and Rob Letterman. Prior to taking a seat in the director’s chair, Jenson racked up a long list of credits as a background and storyboard artist.
Luck sees Carloni reunite with KFP trilogy writers Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger for a humor-driven tale which unmasks the secret groups that manufacture good and bad luck in our everyday lives and their epic ages-old battle. Aibel and Berger, who also penned Trolls and Monster vs. Aliens, are producing with Ellison, Goldberg, Dolset and San Román.
Carloni made his feature directing debut on KFP3 alongside Jennifer Yuh Nelson. The helmer has been working as an animator and story artist for two decades, with credits including head of story on How to Train Your Dragon and How to Train Your Dragon 2, head of character animation on Kung Fu Panda Holiday, and animation supervisor on Kung Fu Panda.
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