Extinct (Animation by Simpsons-veterans, 2020)

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Extinct, the feature that will be helmed by David Silverman (director, The Simpsons Movie; co-director, Monsters, Inc.) is moving forward with the participation of Cinesite’s Montreal studio.

The original adventure-comedy, first announced last November, follows an adorable species of fluffy animals called “Flummels.” After a couple of time-travelling flummels discover that they’ve gone extinct in the present day, they travel back in time to save their species from extinction.

The film is written by Simpsons veterans, being Joel Cohen, John Frink, and Rob LaZebnik.

Extinct is a fully-Chinese financed film, with producers China Lion Film and HB Wink Animation overseeing the film on the China side.

“From the outset, producing high quality co-productions that embody Chinese cultural elements for global distribution has been China Lion’s mission,” said China Lion president Yanming Jiang. “We were deeply attracted by Extinct’s great script and the talented creatives behind it. Today’s announcement is the culmination of two years of development, we believe the flummels will be the next animated characters loved by kids and teens all over the world.”

During peak of production, Cinesite expects to employ over 125 artists, technicians, and support staff at its Montreal studio. Extinct will be the fifth animated feature created by Cinesite. Its other titles include Sony Picture Animation’s The Star, the upcoming 3QU Media title Gnome Alone, and MGM’s The Addams Family, currently in production at Cinesite’s Vancouver studio.

Extinct is targeted for global distribution in the first quarter of 2020.