‘Love Actually’ Director Richard Curtis Unveils First Six Minutes Of New Animated Christmas Movie; Talks Charlie Brown Inspiration – Annecy
12.06.2024 - 06:37
/ deadline.com
Richard Curtis brought Christmas cheer to an unseasonably drizzly day at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on Tuesday as he presented his first animated feature That Christmas in a Work in Progress session.
“I really adore Christmas. Whenever I’m kind of thinking of stories, that’s the first place that my mind goes to,” the screenwriter and director told the audience of animation professionals and students.
Having made one of the definitive Christmas movies of all time with live action hit Love Actually, the Bridget Jones Diary and Notting Hill rom-com king has his sights on realizing a similar achievement in animation.
His Netflix-backed animation debut is directed by How To Train Your Dragon animator Simon Otto (whose directing credits include Love, Death & Robots) and produced by Nicole P. Hearon (Moana, Frozen) and Adam Tandy (The Thick of It, Detectorists) For Locksmith Animation.
“It’s the best time of the year,” said Curtis of the Christmas season. “I love all the questions. It says to you: ‘Have you been naughty? Have you been nice? Is your family functional?… There’s the disastrous family meal; where I come from, there’s a big, freezing Christmas swim in the North Sea, and there’s the dreadful walk you have to go on with people you don’t like.”
“Then there’s Christmas movies, that were always such a huge thing when I was young… It’s a Wonderful Life, I’ve seen it 40 times. I love the Charlie Brown movie. That’s my biggest inspiration for this. There’s the other greatest ever Christmas movie Elf. There’s White Christmas, which I used to watch with my dad every single year.”
Curtis’ screenplay is adapted from his trilogy of Christmas-themed children’s books– The Empty Stocking, Snow Day, and Tha