David Michel and Zoé Carrera of Cottonwood plot a course for "Around the world in 80 days"

David Michel and Zoé Carrera of Cottonwood plot a course for "Around the world in 80 days"


*** This article originally appeared in the June-July '21 issue of Animation magazine (No. 311) ***

There have been many film adaptations of the French novelist Jules Verne's Around the world in 80 days, but this year we have a fascinating new version with a marmoset and a frog as the globetrotting heroes from Passepartout and Phileas.

The action-packed film, produced by Cottonwood Media and Paris-based StudioCanal, is written by Gerry Swallow (Ice Age 2) and directed by Oscar nominee Samuel Tourneux (Pigeons also go to heaven). The film, which generated a lot of interest in the Cannes market last year, will be released in France this summer and will have a launch in other European territories in the autumn.

Film producers David Michel and Zoé Z. Carrera tell Entrainment which were inspired by a Hispanic-Japanese adaptation of the book (Around the world with Willy Fog) that they saw on French TV when they were little. "This was our first film in Cottonwood, so we wanted to start with a well-known property," says Michel, whose numerous credits include Totally Spies, the Ollie & moon show, squish e Find me in Paris. “We both loved this adventure, so we asked Gerry to write the story with animal characters. With my French accent, Willy Fog sounded like Willy Frog, so we all thought it would be fun to have a frog as the main character, "adds Carrera, who has also worked on the films. The Lorax e Yellow bird.

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Work on the film began in 2016 and animation production was split between Mac Guff Belgium in Brusells and Circus in France. Altogether, around 100 people worked on the feature, with CG animation produced in Maya. "We had a good budget for a European animated film, but we had to be very smart with our budget (estimated at $ 19 million)," says Michel. "We had about 50 backgrounds and that meant we couldn't build everything in 3D and we had to take some shortcuts, but overall we're very happy with the graphics."

The filmmakers also added their own special touches to the story. As Michel explains, “Jules Verne had an extraordinary sense of story, action and adventure, but the characters were a little flat. So we kept the main points of the plot and the narrative, but we redeveloped the characters. "

Carrera points out that the original novel had no real female characters, only skinny bridesmaids in distress. “We wanted to have a really strong female character, so we revisited the original Princess Aouda character and transformed her into a daring steampunk aviator who builds and pilots planes. Obviously in our film he is also a frog! "

Both Carrera and Michel are quite proud of Cottonwood's first feature film. "We are really proud that we were able to put it together," says Michel. “One of the most interesting parts of our job is striving to do the best on a tight budget. The film will be screened in Annecy in June and, from a sales point of view, it was a great success as StudioCanal was able to sell it in many territories. It's a great escape adventure that can be a fun family summer movie. In essence, it's a friends film about a book-loving marmoset craving adventure and a frog who is truly a con artist, and how they learn to get along as they travel the world.

For more information, visit cottonwood.tv/portfolio/around-the-world-in-80-days.

Here is the French trailer of the film:

Around the world in 80 days



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