Nimona Trailer: Netflix Is Bringing The Queer Sci-Fi Fantasy Adventure Comic To The Screen
Not even the House of Mouse is powerful enough to prevent ND Stevenson's spirited shape-shifting hero Nimona from making her way to the screen.
For those not in the know, "Nimona" is an animated sci-fi fantasy adventure feature based on Stevenson's award-winning comics series that began its life at Fox's Blue Sky Studios all the way back in 2015. However, after acquiring Fox's movie and television divisions, Disney closed down Blue Sky in 2021, at which point "Nimona" was reportedly a mere 10 months away from being completed. Thankfully, much like a knight in shining armor with a mechanical prosthetic arm (more on that to come), Annapurna Pictures and Netflix eventually swooped in to save the film and bring it across the finish line.
We're now a month away from "Nimona" making its way into the public's eye, starting with its premiere at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on June 14, 2023. The film was written by Robert L. Baird ("Big Hero 6") and Lloyd Taylor ("Spies in Disguise"), with "Spies in Disguise" directors Nick Bruno and Troy Quane calling the shots. It also boasts a voice cast loaded with big talent, including Chloë Grace Moretz as Nimona and Riz Ahmed as Ballister Blackheart (the aforementioned knight). What's more, early stills from the movie have revealed it's a far cry aesthetically from the formulaic styles of Disney and Pixar, hewing closer to the more experimental animation approaches embraced by DreamWorks and, fittingly, Netflix of late.
For more on that, watch the newly-unveiled "Nimona" trailer below!
Watch the Nimona trailer
As if a genre-blending storyline and inventive animation weren't enough, "Nimona" is a work that's queer to its core, coming from queer creators and dealing with themes of identity in addition to explicitly queer relationships. One would think Disney might've liked to have had such an LGBTQ+-friendly movie on its release slate last year when word got out about the company's contributions to Florida Republicans' despicable HB 1557, a.k.a. the "Don't Say Gay" bill. By then, though, the House of Mouse had not only shuttered Blue Sky, the word on the grapevine was that it had already asked the studio to cut a scene featuring a same-sex kiss from "Nimona" before dropping the movie entirely.
As it were, Disney's loss is Netflix's gain, and "Nimona" itself couldn't be arriving at a more timely moment, what with school teachers in Florida now being investigated simply for showing their students animated films (ones from Disney, no less!) that feature openly queer characters. The movie also boasts an admirably diverse supporting cast, with Eugene Lee Yang, RuPaul Charles, Frances Conroy, Lorraine Toussaint, and Indya Moore lending their voices along with "Saturday Night Live" trio Julio Torres, Sarah Sherman, and Beck Bennett.
The film's official synopsis reads as follows:
"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."
"Nimona" is set to premiere at the Annecy Animation Film Festival on June 14, 2023. It will begin streaming on Netflix just over two weeks later on June 30.