Another week, another major film being pushed from theaters to streaming. 2021 is still feeling like 2020 Part II, isn’t’ it? This time, we have Netflix continuing to bolster its lineup with a major animated pickup courtesy of Sony and producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.
According to Netflix, Sony is sending their animated feature “The Mitchells vs. The Machines” to the streaming service later this year. The film, formerly titled “Connected,” comes from producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and was expected to be one of the biggest animated hits of 2020 before it kept getting delayed due to the pandemic. And now, Sony has just decided to bite the bullet and ship it off to Netflix.
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“We are overwhelmed by the enthusiasm Netflix has expressed for this movie with this acquisition and grateful to everyone at Sony for making a great picture with us and finding a big way to bring it to audiences,” said Lord and Miller. “We’re really proud of the film we all made together, plus we understand our subscription fees are waived in perpetuity as part of the deal? We’re not lawyers but it does sound right to us.”
Director Mike Rianda added, “This is a very personal movie about my very weird family. I’m so grateful to all the incredible artists that poured their love and passion into this project to make it a reality, and to everyone at Sony who believed in us and were on board to make a different kind of animated movie. I’m so thrilled that everyone at Netflix has been totally in sync with us creatively and are just as excited about the movie as we are! Not only because it’s an original story with a creative visual style that we’re extremely proud of, but also so I can prove to my friends that this five-year journey wasn’t an elaborate delusion on my part.”
The film stars Danny McBride, Abbi Jacobson, Maya Rudolph, Mike Rianda, Eric Andre, Olivia Colman, and Blake Griffin. Again, there’s no official release date set for the film, but Netflix said it’s coming “later this year.”
Here’s the official synopsis for “The Mitchells vs. The Machines”:
The Mitchells vs. The Machines is an original animated comedy about an everyday family’s struggle to relate while technology rises up around the world! When Katie Mitchell (voiced by Abbi Jacobson), a creative outsider, is accepted into the film school of her dreams, her plans to meet “her people” at college are upended when her nature-loving dad Rick (voiced by Danny McBride) determines the whole family should drive Katie to school together and bond as a family one last time.
Here’s the trailer for the film, which was originally titled “Connected”:
