Marcel the Shell (with sneakers on) is making the leap from the web to the massive display screen.
A24 has acquired the North American rights to the function movie model of “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On,” after its 2021 Telluride Film Festival debut, in a deal negotiated by WME Independent and CAA Media Finance.
“Marcel the Shell With Shoes On” is predicated on Dean Fleischer Camp and Jenny Slate’s beloved cease-movement animated brief movies of the similar title, which have garnered over 50 million views on YouTube since their 2010 debut, plus two New York Times greatest-promoting kids’s books. Slate voices Marcel, an lovely one-inch-tall seashell who lives a colourful existence along with his grandmother Connie (Isabella Rossellini) and their pet lint, Alan.
Directed by Camp — who additionally wrote the screenplay alongside Slate and Nick Paley, from a narrative by Camp, Slate, Paley, and Elisabeth Holm — “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On” marks the character’s massive-display screen debut in what’s described as a “hilarious and heartwarming story about finding connection in the smallest corners.”
The 90-minute film chronicles the journey of Marcel and Connie, who had been as soon as a part of a sprawling neighborhood of shells, but now dwell alone as the sole survivors of a mysterious tragedy. “But when a documentary filmmaker discovers them amongst the clutter of his Airbnb,” the movie’s official logline explains, “the short film he posts online brings Marcel millions of passionate fans, as well as unprecedented dangers and a new hope at finding his long-lost family.”
Rosa Salazar, Thomas Mann and Lesley Stahl spherical out the forged for the movie, which debuted at Telluride in September to vital and viewers acclaim. Variety chief movie critic Peter Debruge wrote in his overview that “it’s hard to believe that a googly-eyed shell and a silly voice can sustain an entire movie, and yet Jenny Slate’s adorable creation proves irresistible.”
“Marcel the Shell With Shoes On” was produced by Holm, Andrew Goldman, Caroline Kaplan and Paul Mezey, with Camp, Slate and Terry Leonard additionally on board as producers. Executive producers are Philipp Engelhorn, William Byerley, Nion McEvoy, George Rush and Michael Raisler.
The challenge is a Cinereach manufacturing in affiliation with Chiodo Bros. Productions, with Stephen Chiodo as the supervising animation director and Edward Chiodo as the animation producer. The animation director is Kirsten Lepore.
Fleischer Camp is represented by Mosaic, CAA and Granderson Des Rochers; Paley is represented by Range Media Partners and Victoria Cook at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz; Slate is represented by WME, Linden Entertainment and Morris Yorn, and The Lede Company; Holm is represented by UTA and Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz.
A24
