Everything We Know About Animal Friends, The R-Rated Live-Action/CGI Hybrid With Ryan Reynolds & Many More
Legendary Entertainment is teaming up with Ryan Reynolds' production company Maximum Effort for the live-action/CGI-hybrid effort "Animal Friends." Who are these animal friends? What form will this combination of live-action and animation take? Well, that's all being kept under wraps for now, with the project remaining somewhat of a mystery beyond cast and crew announcements.
As Deadline reports, Reynolds is set to star in the upcoming movie, alongside Jason Momoa, Vince Vaughn, and Aubrey Plaza. "Animal Friends" will be helmed by Emmy-winning director Peter Atencio, who also directed Legendary's "The Machine" — a big screen adaptation of comedian Bert Kreischer's infamous summer spent abroad in Russia, where he somehow managed to befriend the mafia.
Aside from "Animal Friends" being described as an "R-rated road trip adventure," there's very little else in the way of plot details known at this time. We do know the script has been penned by Kevin Burrows and Matt Mider; the pair behind Netflix teen comedy "The Package" and the upcoming Universal film "Shots! Shots! Shots!" As per the Deadline report, Burrows and Mider also wrote the heist comedy "The Pick Up," which is set to enter production at Amazon with Eddie Murphy said to be starring.
Top-notch VFX and an intriguing cast
At this point, very little else is known about "Animal Friends." The official cast and crew announcement came on April 18th, 2023, with the film itself developing out of a general meeting between writers Kevin Burrows and Matt Mider, and Maximum Effort exec Patrick Gooing. Alongside Legendary and Maximum Effort, Namit Malhotra's Prime Focus Studios will be producing the project. Back in 2014, Prime Focus Studios merged with visual effects house DNEG, known for their VFX work on "Tenet," "Blade Runner 2049", and "Interstellar." DNEG will now be lending their talents to "Animal Friends," and with such an impressive resume, you can expect the visual effects in the upcoming film to be top-notch.
In terms of casting, Ryan Reynolds never seems to stop working, most recently showing up in the Apple TV+ holiday movie "Spirited" and probably before every YouTube video you've been trying to watch in his Mint Mobile ads. Seeing him team up with Aubrey Plaza should be interesting, as Plaza has been on an impressive run of late, demonstrating her dramatic chops in the excellent gig economy crime drama "Emily The Criminal." She delivered an equally impressive performance in "The White Lotus" season 2, and is gearing up to star in the upcoming Disney+/Marvel show "Agatha: Coven of Chaos." Just how Plaza's more acerbic wit will blend with Reynolds' brand of comedy remains to be seen, as does how Jason Momoa and Vince Vaughn will fit into that picture.
More news is sure to be incoming in the near future, and we'll be updating this page as and when it does.