Projet annulé par Disney après la fermeture de Blue Sky il y a un an, et ce alors qu'il était achevé à 75%, Nimona va finalement voir le jour et sortira sur Netflix en 2023! Le studio DNEG Animation s'est chargé de terminer les graphismes du film.
Netflix a écrit:
Nimona is coming to Netflix!
In a future medieval land, shapeshifter Nimona (Chloe Grace Moretz) bursts into the lives of heroic knights (Riz Ahmed and Eugene Lee Yang) and blows up everything they believe in. An epic animated film adapted from the groundbreaking comic by Noelle Stevenson.
Les adultes sont juste des enfants qui ont grandi.
De terminer ou de tout recommencer depuis le début ? Ce serait très surprenant que Disney donne gracieusement 75% du film à Netflix, ou alors Disney se positionnerait en coproducteur.
Disneyland Paris : déc. 1997/avr. 1998/juil. 1999/avr. 2005/aoû. 2005/oct. 2005/fév. 2006/avr. 2006 - Cast Member 2006-2011 - visites régulières jusqu'à aujourd'hui Walt Disney World Resort : nov. 2008/mai 2011/fév.-mars 2018/sep. 2019/oct. 2022 Disneyland Resort : sep. 2009/mai 2013/nov. 2015/août 2019/déc. 2023 Tokyo Disney Resort : juin 2015/avr. 2016 Hong Kong Disneyland Resort : mars 2016 Shanghai Disney Resort : mai 2016 / juin 2016 / juil. 2016 Disney Cruise Line : mars 2018 (Disney Dream) / sep. 2019 (Disney Fantasy) / oct. 2022 (Disney Wish) / nov. 2023 (Disney Magic) / sep. 2024 (Disney Wonder)
En tout cas, les réalisateurs sont des anciens de Blue Sky, Nick Bruno et Troy Quane (Les Incognitos). Sur son twitter, Troy Quane déclare qu'il est à la réalisation depuis 2020. Et selon lui le casting vocal est resté inchangé.
Netflix a écrit:
'Nimona' Starring Chloë Grace Moretz, Riz Ahmed & Eugene Lee Yang Coming to Netflix In 2023
Netflix will release the much anticipated animated film Nimona in 2023. Netflix partnered with Annapurna Pictures when production began early last year.
Nimona is adapted from the New York Times bestselling graphic novel by author ND Stevenson, who announced the news and debuted a first look on Twitter this morning.
Directors: Nick Bruno and Troy Quane
Producers: Roy Lee, Karen Ryan, Julie Zackary
Executive Producers: Robert L. Baird, Megan Ellison, Andrew Millstein
Cast: Chloë Grace Moretz as Nimona, Riz Ahmed as Ballister Boldheart, and Eugene Lee Yang as Ambrosius Goldenloin.
Animation by: DNEG Animation
Synopsis: A Knight is framed for a crime he didn't commit and the only person who can help him prove his innocence is Nimona, a shape-shifting teen who might also be a monster he's sworn to kill. Set in a techno-medieval world unlike anything animation has tackled before, this is a story about the labels we assign to people and the shapeshifter who refuses to be defined by anyone.
Brozen aime ce message
Brozen
Âge : 24 Messages : 1401 Localisation : A Zootopie, dans le quartier de Tundratown Inscription : 01/10/2016
En tout cas, je suis vraiment contente de savoir que le projet est finalement à nouveau en route. C'est vraiment quelque chose que j'aime beaucoup avec Netflix, c'est que cette plateforme permet à beaucoup de projets qui semblaient condamnés, à finalement voir le jour. Le visuel donne envie et cet univers médiéval/futuriste est prometteur. J'ai hâte de voir ça!
Il semble que l'animation du film soit terminée ! Même s'il reste encore bien sûr plusieurs choses à conclure, je trouve ça encore dingue de se dire qu'on est si proche d'avoir un film qu'on a bien failli, et qu'on a bien pensé, ne jamais avoir, après tout ce temps. Quelque part, le passage de torche rend le projet encore plus intéressant à mes yeux, et l'anticipation du rendu final encore plus excitante. Vraiment hâte d'avoir des premières images.
MadEye, Flounder69, isanka, L'Oncle Walt, Brozen et Simorgh aiment ce message
Mercredi, j'ai vu le film en avant-première à Annecy et ça a été un vrai coup de coeur, j'ai adoré! L'univers est vraiment original, avec un mélange de traditions médiévales (avec une monarchie et des chevaliers) avec de la modernité. L'animation utilise un style 2D/3D très convaincant, j'adore notamment les animations des personnages (Nimona tire des têtes vraiment hilarantes, comme on peut le voir dans la bande-annonce). L'humour est également très bon, c'est un humour au tac-au-tac bien dynamique comme j'aime. Les deux protagonistes ont des personnalités vraiment attachantes et on se prend d'une réelle sympathie pour leur amitié. Et l'ambiance dans la salle était absolument incroyable! Quand l'auteur du livre est venu sur scène, il a eu droit à une standing-ovation, tout le monde s'est levé pour l'applaudir. Et quand le film a commencé, l'ambiance était toujours dingue, les gens ont applaudi lors de l'affichage du titre et applaudissaient à chaque excellent gag. Il y a vraiment une super ambiance à ce festival! Je suis vraiment très contente que ce film ait pu sortir. Il revient de loin et s'avère au final très réussi.
Une merveille. Nimona et Balister portent totalement le film. De l'humour mais aussi une histoire symbolique et totalement actuelle, autant sur l'identité que sur la société.
Visuellement très bon pour les personnages principaux et au niveau de l'animation. Je serais un peu plus nuancé au niveau des décors. L'ambiance et le style fonctionne mais certains environnements m'ont paru un peu léger et simpliste par moment (les extérieurs en ville). Rien qui n'entache le cœur du film.
Très bon film. Visuellement ya un parti pris très intéressant même si parfois ça fait un peu cheap quand même mais ça se pardonne parce que je sais que le budget n'est pas faramineux et que ça se justifie quand même artistiquement. Au niveau de l'histoire, on a déjà vu ce type de scénario mais c'est très bien raconté et jamais barbant, toujours fun et plein de bonnes idées. Cela m'étonnerait que le film aurait été aussi bon chez Blue Sky Studios qui n'était pas connu pour sa liberté de ton. Le film semble avoir gagné à avoir changé de studio.
Disneyland Paris : déc. 1997/avr. 1998/juil. 1999/avr. 2005/aoû. 2005/oct. 2005/fév. 2006/avr. 2006 - Cast Member 2006-2011 - visites régulières jusqu'à aujourd'hui Walt Disney World Resort : nov. 2008/mai 2011/fév.-mars 2018/sep. 2019/oct. 2022 Disneyland Resort : sep. 2009/mai 2013/nov. 2015/août 2019/déc. 2023 Tokyo Disney Resort : juin 2015/avr. 2016 Hong Kong Disneyland Resort : mars 2016 Shanghai Disney Resort : mai 2016 / juin 2016 / juil. 2016 Disney Cruise Line : mars 2018 (Disney Dream) / sep. 2019 (Disney Fantasy) / oct. 2022 (Disney Wish) / nov. 2023 (Disney Magic) / sep. 2024 (Disney Wonder)
How ‘Nimona’ survived a studio shutdown among many challenges on its way to the screen
The main character of the acclaimed graphic novel “Nimona” is a shapeshifter: sometimes a girl, other times an animal, always a spunky agent of chaos. One day, she inserts herself into the life of knight-turned-villain Ballister Blackheart in order to become his sidekick. Nimona is impulsive, playful and destructive. She’s also enthusiastic about depravity in general, including the act of killing people.
One “Nimona” review that remained with creator ND Stevenson over the years came from a friend’s 5-year-old niece.
“Her feedback was, ‘I like Nimona because she’s mean,’ ” said Stevenson during a video call in June. “I always remembered that because it’s a 5-year-old’s review, but there’s something very true in that. We don’t feel like we can express those dark, messy emotions. Nimona does things that we are not able to do, but she’s a catharsis.”
The long-awaited adaptation (now on Netflix) marks the conclusion of a uniquely tumultuous journey. Directed by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane, the feature-length animated “Nimona,” which premiered last month at France’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival, survived a mega media merger, changes in creative leadership, a global pandemic and even a studio shutdown, just as the movie was coming together.
While there were periods of uncertainty along the way, Stevenson, who is also a co-producer of the adaptation, believed in “Nimona” and trusted the team that was fighting for the movie.
“I think I knew that something really special was going to happen to make sure that it was seen,” said Stevenson. “Nothing was going to keep this movie in a box.”
Resiliency had been built into “Nimona” from the start.
The origin story
Early sketches of Nimona by creator ND Stevenson. (Netflix)
Stevenson began publishing “Nimona” online in 2012 as an ongoing webcomic. At the time he was a student at the Maryland Institute College of Art, but he traces Nimona’s origins to a creation he came up with while in high school.
Originally named Nightshade, the character was conceived as having “truly unlimited control over her own body and she could turn into any person, any thing, any creature, with really no limitations,” said Stevenson. The twist was that she had no true “default” state, so every transformation was into a form she chose to be.
It wasn’t until college, though, when “a punky, Joan of Arc-type futuristic medieval character” became a recurring presence in Stevenson’s sketchbook, he says, that he decided to revisit Nightshade. A budding interest in comics led him to want to take a stab at the medium, so he thought he’d try fleshing out this character’s story further on the page while finding his own voice as a storyteller.
Struggling with his own transition into adulthood, Stevenson, who is transmasculine, says Nimona was a character that he “really needed at the time.“
“She was really the embodiment of that feeling of limitless possibility — of who you could be, and also the complications that come with that,” said Stevenson. “She got to express feelings that I felt like I couldn’t.”
A page from 2015’s “Nimona.” (ND Stevenson / HarperCollins)
Stevenson admits that when he started posting “Nimona” online he wasn’t sure how the character would be received. What he did know was that he was writing the kind of comic he had not yet encountered, and that he didn’t want to compromise the narrative for anyone.
A story that subverts even bedrock ideas of heroism, “Nimona” engages with larger questions around assigned labels, personal identity and our capacity for change. Its resonant themes connected with new audiences, and by Stevenson’s senior year, the series had piqued the interest of publishers.
Released as a bound volume by HarperCollins in 2015, “Nimona” was named a National Book Award finalist. Other accolades followed, as did the announcement that “Nimona” would be adapted into an animated feature by a team that included director Patrick Osborne, who’d helmed the Academy Award-winning animated short, “Feast,” and writer Marc Haimes (“Kubo and the Two Strings”).
Staying true to ‘Nimona’
Directors Bruno and Quane were in production on their animated feature “Spies in Disguise” when they heard that “Nimona” was headed for development at Fox-owned Blue Sky Studios.
“They asked if we wouldn’t mind just sitting in on some intensive story days, and just really try and dig in and and find what that through line [of the movie] was,” said Quane.
Concept art for the movie’s version of Nimona. (Netflix)
It’s not uncommon for movies, especially those with rich source material, to become unfocused over the course of production. Robert Baird, an animation veteran who was co-president of Blue Sky at the time, explains that creative teams can lose their objectivity as they get lost in the minutiae.
“We had gone down a lot of different roads, which is what you have to do, and knew some of the areas were working and some weren’t working,” said Baird, who is now co-head of animation at Annapurna. “Nick and Troy have an incredible ability to watch where you are in a movie and say, ‘Guys, you’re forgetting what it’s about.’ ”
Not everyone was committing to the film being Nimona’s story, recalls Bruno.
“I think it seemed easier to follow Ballister, a disgraced knight, because that fit the mold,” said Bruno. “But as a result, Nimona became this pixie punk sidekick and that just never felt right.”
According to Bruno and Quane, clarity came after producer Karen Ryan opened discussions to everyone in the studio, inviting anybody who wanted to come talk about “Nimona” and what the graphic novel meant to them.
“It’s a love letter to all those who are misunderstood,” said Bruno, “and there are people who felt very passionate about it and connected to those themes, people of the LGBTQ+ community in particular. We need[ed] to embrace the Nimona-ness of the film.”
Listening to how their colleagues had connected to Nimona was humbling for Quane.
“It really did feel like we were stewards for some very personal stories,” he said. “And a lot of that stuff made it into the movie — moments that people had experienced.”
But when it finally seemed like “Nimona” was overcoming its creative hurdles, Walt Disney Co. — which had taken over Blue Sky when it acquired 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets in 2019 — shut it all down.
Going to war
Bruno and Quane officially became the movie’s new directors in March 2020. The pair knew it would be a challenging job, and were given 16 months to completely overhaul the film.
But five days after officially taking the helm, they, along with everyone in the studio, were sent home because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pivoting to remote work at that time was not ideal, but not impossible.
Nimona challenges expectations. (Netflix)
“There was just so much passion to not give up on the movie,” said Baird, adding that it became the team’s “lifeline, because it was the only thing we felt we could control.”
Ten months after Bruno and Quane began what was supposed to be a 16-month “Nimona” journey, Disney shut down Blue Sky in early 2021, resulting in about 450 people losing their jobs, a devastating blow.
Blue Sky was “a place where I grew up,” said Bruno, who started at the studio nearly two decades ago while still a student. “These are people that went to my wedding, or were at the hospital visiting me when I had my kids. It wasn’t just knowing that we weren’t going to get to work together again on a movie, it was knowing that most of these people were going to have to leave and go out into the world.”
Still reeling from the shutdown, the core creative team knew it had to try to keep “Nimona” alive.
“When Blue Sky was shut down, everything was really starting to come together,” said graphic novelist Stevenson. “There was an immediate emotion within this group of people that we were not going to go down easily, that it was something this group of people was going to fight for really hard.”
Without the studio, the official “Nimona” team dwindled from around 300 artists and production staff to a core creative team of 10 people, including Baird, producer Julie Zackary and former Blue Sky co-president Andrew Millstein. Armed with a set of story reels, some character models and a clear sense of Nimona’s voice (the role would eventually go to Chloë Grace Moretz), they started shopping the project around.
“Nimona” found a champion in producer Megan Ellison of Annapurna, who “was so drawn to the story, she basically said, ‘You have to make it here,’ “ according to Baird.
The next step was securing a new studio partner to help execute the film, which turned out to be DNEG Animation. But instead of just trying to re-create what had been scrapped, the directors left room for “this new group of people to connect to the material and find themselves in it,” said Quane, who, in the new union, sees an “an incredible chemical combination — the spirit of Blue Sky and the talent of DNEG.”
“Nimona’s” revival was officially announced last year, and while the final film is different from the story reels developed while at Blue Sky, Baird says they share the same soul.
‘Nimona’ rises
Those familiar with the “Nimona” comic will notice that the film is quite different from its source material. But challenging expectations is one of the truest manifestations of its themes. (The film includes a more pronounced same-sex relationship between two characters than even Stevenson first envisioned, shifting from ambiguity into a “messy, divorced energy.”)
“That was [the filmmakers] the whole way,” he says. “Whatever fights they were fighting, I never had to be exposed to them. I just got to see the beautiful finished product.”
After Blue Sky was shut down, there were reports that Disney had been concerned about the LGBTQ+ representation and themes in “Nimona.” When asked about the accuracy of these reports, the directors were diplomatic, saying the movie speaks for itself.
“Our biggest villain has always been expectation on this film,” said Bruno. “What are the expectations for a family audience? What is the expectation of a female hero? ‘Nimona’ does everything to defy expectations. So I will say that the journey was never an easy one, but at the end of the day, the journey doesn’t matter.”
“I feel like we did everything we could on this,” adds Quane. “We did everything the way we wanted to. We fought hard. We had a lot of amazing people fighting hard next to us.”
Stevenson, who remembers being able to hear kids playing at a nearby day care while working on the comic in his apartment, is looking forward to seeing how younger audiences might engage with the movie.
“I want to see kids playing shapeshifter on the playground,” said Stevenson. “I want to see them pretending to be dragons and running around, to see how the next generation of future storytellers respond to the movie — and to the character.”
Ballister Boldheart (Riz Ahmed) and Nimona (Chloë Grace Moretz) in “Nimona.” (Netflix)
The Director (Frances Conroy) and Ambrosius Goldenloin (Eugene Lee Yang) in “Nimona.” (Netflix)
'Nimona' Directors on Saving Their Film From Cancellation: 'People Need a Movie Like This' (Exclusive)
Nimona is officially streaming on Netflix, but you can forgive filmmakers Nick Bruno and Troy Quane for feeling a bit of trepidation around the movie's debut. The road leading to this moment has been especially long and winding for the directing duo, plagued by setbacks including changes in leadership, a global pandemic, and a studio shutdown. When the Bruno and Quane sat down with A.frame prior to Nimona's release, the former quipped, "We're just hoping it doesn't get shut down again."
Based on ND Stevenson's beloved graphic novel of the same name, Nimona takes place in a futuristic medieval world where knights ride around in flying cars. The story centers on Ballister Boldheart (voiced by Riz Ahmed), a disgraced knight who is framed for murdering the queen, and Nimona (Chloë Grace Moretz), a trouble-making shapeshifter desperate to be Ballister's sidekick. Throughout their journey, the unlikely duo discovers a conspiracy that connects back to the very founding of their kingdom.
Back in 2015, 20th Century Fox acquired the rights to Stevenson's graphic novel with the intention of producing a movie adaptation through its now-defunct animation subsidiary, Blue Sky Studios. However, when Disney completed its acquisition of Fox in 2019, the studio delayed the release of Nimona, before ultimately shutting down Blue Sky Studios in early 2021 and effectively canceling the film. Fortunately, it was revived in early 2022 by Annapurna Pictures and Netflix, who partnered with DNEG Animation to help Quane and Bruno finish the film.
"It's been such a journey," Quane reflects. "There have been so many twists and turns and unforeseen elements that have just sideswiped us. It's great to be at the point now where people are reacting and responding to the film itself, and not just to the story that's led up to it."
Nimona's June 30 release notably coincides with the end of Pride Month, and fans of Stevenson's graphic novel will be relieved to learn that the movie version maintains its queerness. In fact, the directors couldn't imagine a version of Nimona that doesn't honor that aspect of its characters. "For us, it was about being honest and true to the characters we were getting to work with and the narrative we were trying to tell," Quane says. "I think it's a responsibility we all have as storytellers, whether it's in an animated form or not, to show the world as it really is."
A.frame: The film had its world premiere at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. What was it like watching it with a crowd for the first time?
NICK BRUNO: I hate to sound corny, but it was pretty moving. Annecy is such a beautiful place. You have working professionals and fans in the crowd, so it's a great group of people to celebrate the movie with. What I really loved was getting to talk to so many people afterward about what the movie represents to them and why they felt it was important to get made. It's hard to explain, but we really had something we believed in with this film and knew we were making it because a lot of people need a movie like this. So, when it was initially shut down, we kept hearing from people about how we couldn't give up on it, how it had to be made, and how they needed it. To get that kind of response is a really profound experience. We joke about it hopefully not being shut down or canceled again, but the truth is that it is going to be out there soon. We're incredibly happy and proud of it.
TROY QUANE: To build off that, I think the exciting thing was that there are so many people who are fans of the original graphic novel who will carry what it means to them into the film. But having people coming up to us afterward and say, "I love this movie so much that I can't wait to go back and read the graphic novel," knowing that we'd created new fans and that they still had the same reaction based solely on the film, made us feel like we really did something right.
Nick Bruno (left) and Troy Quane, directors of 'Nimona.'
What originally drew you to Nimona's world and characters?
QUANE: The character of Nimona is just so engaging. She's unapologetically confident and in your face and disruptive and funny. The fact that she's a character who can be anything she wants and chooses to represent herself in this specific way is incredibly empowering, unique, and something that needs to be seen on screen. I think we all have a moment where we think, "Oh, I wish I could be somebody else so that I can fit in better..." And to have Nimona respond to that impulse with "Why? Be you and let people see you that way" is important. Having Ballister as her counter is also important, because he's desperately trying to alter the public perception of himself by changing who he is and becoming a knight and literally encasing himself in armor in order to be viewed differently.
Eventually, Ballister realizes that there is value in who he is, and Nimona comes to understand that all you need is one person to get to know you and form their own opinion about you in order to make a difference. They both learn really beautiful lessons from each other, and the graphic novel's mythical future world is designed to support that. It's not just that it's cool to see flying cars and knights and swords all at once. The idea behind the world is that, while its culture has advanced and moved forward, its thinking is still very static. How do you change that? How do you make sure the way you think progresses with time?
Nimona really doesn't look like any other animated movie. How did you settle on its visual style?
BRUNO: First of all, I feel like it's an extremely exciting time for animation right now. People are taking more chances in general. Some of that is because we're moving away from the same three studios that have been doing animation for years, and some of it is due to the fact that we understand the technology better now. So, we're able to use the hammer in a different way, if you will. With Nimona, we wanted it to feel evocative of some of the fairy tale styles we've seen in movies like Sleeping Beauty and Sword in the Stone, but we also wanted to use the modern advances of technology to give that aesthetic a fresh spin. And that decision was also made because, thematically speaking, what does a medieval future world represent? It has all these technological advances and yet the culture still has the mindset of a feudal past. Everything from the look of the film's world to the way people think in it all stems from that thematic idea, which really informed everything we did.
QUANE: We even used those ideas to inform how we represent the characters within the movie. The closer they are to the camera, the more detailed they are. The idea is that the closer we allow people to get to us, the more they see all the elements that make us a unique individual. When they're kept farther away, we become a more generic representation of ourselves that others could easily get wrong. We were always playing with those ideas in the film.
BRUNO: For the record, that literally meant that if a character stood past a certain distance from the camera, they were swapped out with a different geometry. It's that way in the graphic novel, too, because you only have one size pencil, right? When they're smaller in the frame, you start to draw them differently and start to simplify their forms.
The film is obviously visually indebted to its source material, but did you look at any other films or TV shows for inspiration? There's one sequence that feels inspired by monster movies like Godzilla.
QUANE: Blade Runner was hugely inspirational in certain places, where we were trying to achieve a kind of future grunge look. In other areas, we thought about Camelot, with its gleaming sets of armor and brightly lit set pieces. Generally, we're always looking for ways to create visual contrast. At the same time, this was such a unique story with such unique characters that we could only do that up to a certain point before we had to just accept that it was going to be what it was going to be and then build from there.
BRUNO: For me, I thought a lot about Beetlejuice. I love the feeling that Michael Keaton creates in that film, where you're not always sure whether Beetlejuice is good or bad. Here, we purposefully held back on revealing Nimona's backstory instead of delivering it up front like we normally would. That was because a lot of people in the film are constantly telling you that Nimona is bad, even though as you get to know the character, you start to feel like she's pretty good. At the same time, she can be a little unsettling, because she has a big personality and a dangerous exterior. I also looked at King Kong, because Kong's such a soulful character that the world doesn't understand. In our film, the world is going after both Nimona and Ballister for similar reasons, but Nimona also has her own drive, which I won't reveal for those who haven't seen the movie.
When you transition from one studio to another like you did here, moving from Fox and Blue Sky to Annapurna and Netflix, how does that affect your process as filmmakers?
QUANE: Well, we went from a vertically integrated environment where every department was down the hall from each other and you could walk to a person's desk and ask, "Hey, how's it going?" to essentially a vendor-client situation. We went from having a lot of stuff built and ready to go that had been developed over years and years, to going to a new studio where 90 percent of the stuff we'd built didn’t translate. We had to start literally from scratch. DNEG Animation came on and they did an amazing job of rebuilding everything to try and maintain what we had, while also discovering their own version of everything. For us, as directors, the challenge became making sure that we didn't just keep pointing backward. We always say that our job is to talk a movie into existence and get people passionate enough to bring their own love and creativity to it. But if all you're doing is saying, "Copy this," no one can feel passionate about that.
At the same time, we'd already found something we loved, so we really had to find a way to both direct a new crew toward what we'd already done and allow them to find their own passion and love for this film. We needed to make it something that is close to what we already had but also new and of itself. It was a really interesting journey.
BRUNO: The weird thing is that while that all was challenging, that's also what we do. That's the job. The truly amazing thing was, when we found our new partners with Annapurna and Netflix, they fully supported what we were trying to do. We got to get an 800-pound gorilla off our back so that we could actually tell the story we wanted to tell. They really supported the themes that we wanted to explore. Writing and breaking a film's story is always the hardest part. That's the thing you're racking your brain about all day, so when you have genuine support, it becomes a whole lot easier. Even though we had to rebuild the whole movie, that was really the easy part. The hard part was getting to a place where we were able to tell the story that we wanted to tell.
Nimona puts queer love at the front and center of its story. In animated movies, that still feels like an uncommon occurrence. Why was it important for you to spotlight queerness in animation?
QUANE: Unfortunately, I think it is uncommon, and if it is shown, it always seems like the characters' central journeys involve them struggling with their sexuality. For us, the queer elements of Nimona are just so intrinsic to ND Stevenson's original graphic novel that they're a part of its DNA. We'd seen other attempts at adapting the graphic novel that tried to skirt around its queerness, and they just didn't work because it's so important to who the characters are and what the story is trying to say. Our job really became protecting that, being stewards for that truth, and reflecting what is, in all frankness, the reality of the world around us. We're not coming up with something groundbreaking in this film. We're just saying, "This is love. These are the relationships and people of this story. Just stop and see that." It's not some terrifyingly random or weird thing. Love is love.
We also had a really great group of queer people at Blue Sky who would come in, have lunch with us, and share their experiences and their journeys with us. They were incredibly honest and courageous, and the stories they told were happy, funny, tragic, and contentious. It was our job to make sure we reflected the level of honesty they gave us, and a lot of that made it up onto the screen. Which is why I think the film resonates. It feels real in that sense. It feels like a real story is being told.
BRUNO: One of the biggest things that we got from those conversations is also that, like the rest of us, all of those people grew up looking to animation as a guide to help them navigate the world. Unfortunately, for a long time, certain people have grown up with animated movies that say that the world doesn't include them. Those conversations really helped us realize how important it is to actually show the diversity of the world on-screen. It's everything. It's so incredibly important to do that, because if you don't show the world the way it is, it can make some kids think that there's something wrong with them, and that's unfair.
"We don't tell stories about heterosexual couples struggling with their straightness. It's just accepted. Queerness is just accepted in Nimona."
The movie deals with themes of cultural otherness that resonate deeply with the queer community, but it never makes its characters' sexualities the result or source of their problems. Can you talk about taking that approach for the film?
BRUNO: I hope in a few years, people will be able to look at this movie and say, "Oh, Nimona's just a shapeshifter," and that'll seem like all the movie's about. Right now, it seems like we're saying something else because of the world we're in, but it's not actually, specifically, about queer ostracization. There's nothing wrong with being gay, so why paint a world where there is? Ultimately, the film is really about why no one should pass judgment on others out of fear or a lack of understanding.
QUANE: We, as humans, will always find something to demonize, but we made a choice early on that the struggles the characters have in this film would have nothing to do with their sexuality. That's just who they are. We don't tell stories about heterosexual couples struggling with their straightness. It's just accepted. Queerness is just accepted in Nimona. To Nick's point, hopefully, in a couple of years, we'll have moved past this point in the conversation. That's not how queer characters need to always be represented. We can just be interested in their journeys as individuals rather than worrying about finding ways to dramatize their sexual identities.
Last question: If you could program your dream double feature, what film would you pair Nimona with?
BRUNO: Well, you win because that's the most unique question we’ve been asked on this press tour… Babe: Pig in the City? I'm just trying to think of what would make for the most random pairing, and that is a great movie. You know what, I’d pair it with King Kong.
QUANE: Yeah, agreed. I think there are important ideas about judgment and acceptance in both films.
![Nimona [Netflix - 2023] Vide](https://2img.net/i/fa/vide.gif "Facebook")
Sujet: ![Nimona [Netflix - 2023] Horlog11](https://2img.net/u/3415/66/76/14/album/horlog11.png)
Lun 11 Avr 2022 - 16:43![Nimona [Netflix - 2023] FQEaDGWXIAMiWmc?format=jpg&name=large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FQEaDGWXIAMiWmc?format=jpg&name=large)
![Nimona [Netflix - 2023] Banniere-chronique-disney](https://2img.net/h/perso.numericable.fr/laarmand/banniere-chronique-disney.png)
![Nimona [Netflix - 2023] Tumblr10](https://i.servimg.com/u/f62/11/96/05/88/tumblr10.png)
![Nimona [Netflix - 2023] Banniz12](https://i.servimg.com/u/f92/19/64/73/66/banniz12.jpg)
C'est vraiment quelque chose que j'aime beaucoup avec Netflix, c'est que cette plateforme permet à beaucoup de projets qui semblaient condamnés, à finalement voir le jour. ![Nimona [Netflix - 2023] Tumblr_orhvs4UBAA1shyusgo1_500](https://2img.net/h/78.media.tumblr.com/249ced8a9514a6692ead028f2fbebc04/tumblr_orhvs4UBAA1shyusgo1_500.gif)
![Nimona [Netflix - 2023] Maxres10](https://i.servimg.com/u/f53/20/45/11/75/maxres10.jpg)
![Nimona [Netflix - 2023] Image627](https://servimg.com/r/9219647366/image627.png)
![Nimona [Netflix - 2023] Image729](https://servimg.com/r/9219647366/image729.png)
![Nimona [Netflix - 2023] Image730](https://servimg.com/r/9219647366/image730.png)
![Nimona [Netflix - 2023] Image731](https://servimg.com/r/9219647366/image731.png)
![Nimona [Netflix - 2023] Image732](https://servimg.com/r/9219647366/image732.png)
![Nimona [Netflix - 2023] Image733](https://servimg.com/r/9219647366/image733.png)
![Nimona [Netflix - 2023] Image734](https://servimg.com/r/9219647366/image734.png)
![Nimona [Netflix - 2023] Image735](https://servimg.com/r/9219647366/image735.png)
![Nimona [Netflix - 2023] Image761](https://servimg.com/r/9219647366/image761.png)
![Nimona [Netflix - 2023] Image762](https://servimg.com/r/9219647366/image762.png)
![Nimona [Netflix - 2023] Image763](https://servimg.com/r/9219647366/image763.png)
