DreamWorks' Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken

[Daniel]

Director Kirk DeMicco shares some insight:

"This isn't a gift that was given or a curse that happened to her, he said of Ruby. It's who she is, it's a power that's inside her, and she has a choice to either embrace it or not." Ruby's overprotective mom (Toni Collette) seemingly tries to keep the truth from her daughter about what she is, while her grandmother (Jane Fonda), Warrior Queen of the Seven Seas, steers her towards it.

As Ruby struggles with choosing a life on land, as her mother decided on, or living out what she's meant to be, a teenage rival who just happens to be a mermaid (Annie Murphy) stirs things up by saying she'll out Ruby as a kraken. The flick also stars Colman Domingo as Ruby’s dad, Sam Richardson as her uncle and Blue Chapman as her brother.

"This was an opportunity to really play with more curves and stretched animation because of who they are as a family of sea monsters. We really played with the squash and stretch of the animation that I think a lot of animators all love but may not have had the opportunity [to do] previously. You could feel their excitement when all of a sudden you're like, 'Oh, does it have to be on a rig?' It's like, 'Well no, because they don't have a skeleton. You could turn him into a cube, we can flatten them out."

[Ben]

Interesting possibilities!

[Daniel]

New trailer:



Better than the first. Still looks pretty fun and unique. I like how Ruby doesn't immediately turn into a kraken, she nearly has to drown for it to trigger.

[Daniel]

TV spot:



Introduces Ruby's family.

[Daniel]

Rated PG for "mild threat, violence and implied bad language". Character posters:

[Randall]

Kinda looking forward to this, gotta admit. Been a while since I said that about a DWA film.

[Ben]

It does look pretty nuts.

[gaastra]

And bombing. May not even make the top 5. Ouch! $2.5m friday. Expecting $6m 3 day!

[Ben]

Ow!

[James]

Review coming soon.

Within the first five minutes a character talks about a "post-colonial patriarchal construct".

Make of that what you will.

[Randall]

And people say The Flash bombed!

See, now when I hear that a character says, "post-colonial patriarchal construct" my interest is piqued. But that maybe doesn't appeal to young families.

[GeffreyDrogon]

Looks like Ruby Gillman is going to play more like Spirit Untamed than The Bad Guys.

[Ben]

To be honest, I think we were all "where did THIS come from?" when this was only revealed around two or three months ago. It never felt like it had any kind of buildup or event status. I’ve been hearing "nice" things about it (so even more Luca comparisons!) rather than raves, so maybe it’ll find some legs, hehe, over the next few weeks. At least Universal have a ready-made title for streaming…

[gaastra]

Expected to make $6m. It didn't! From early reports it made--$5m! Ouch! That makes it the worst dreamworks animation opening in history!

[Ben]

Aw, it didn’t look like it deserved that. James' review will be up soon, so interested to see his take on it.