Larrikins (Dreamworks Animation) CANCELLED

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Dreamworks Kills Tim Minchin’s ‘Larrikins’

DreamWorks Animation has made its second cancellation announcement since being purchased by Comcast and absorbed into the NBCUniversal family: Australian comedian-actor-writer-musician-director Tim Minchin’s animated ode to his home country (and DWA’s sole announced release for 2018) Larrikins has fallen under the axe.

Tim Minchin posted this :

“I’ve recently been working in 3 different continents, missing my kids a lot, sleeping too little and not playing piano enough. And then a couple of days ago, the animated film to which I’ve dedicated the last 4 years (!) of my life was shut down by the new studio execs. The only way I know how to deal with my impotent fury and sadness is to subject members of the public to the spectacle of me getting drunk and playing ballads.”

Larrikins, which was to be directed by and feature songs by Minchin (who has written lyrics for the Matilda and Groundhog Day musicals) followed an uptight bilby on a music-driven adventure across the Australian Outback. The film was set to star Hugh Jackman and Margot Robbie, leading an all-Aussie-star cast which also included Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts, Rose Byrne and Ben Mendelsohn.

The news comes a few days after DWA announced a sequel to Trolls. The studio previously canceled a planned Croods 2 following the Comcast acquisition.

Illustrator Peter de Sève (Ice Age series) confirmed on Twitter that he had been the first designer hired on the project, and shared a few pieces of concept art that he’d created for the project.

Peter de Sève tweeted this :

"Very sad to hear DWA killed LARRIKINS, their Aussie project. I was the first designer on that and had high hopes. Silly me. Fun though!"

The studio’s current line-up of confirmed release dates looks like this: The Boss Baby (March 31, 2017), Captain Underpants (June 2, 2017), How to Train Your Dragon 3 (March 1, 2019), Everest (September 27, 2019), Trolls 2 (April 10, 2020).

Well, that's a shame. It sounded like something fresh and not done before by Dreamworks. Great cast too! Instead, they went for the good old safe movies ...