DreamWorks Animation has announced today that Mike Mitchell is set to direct their upcoming Trolls. Emmy Award-winning writer Erica Rivinoja will provide the screenplay.
Mitchell, currently directing the live action sequences in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie 2, has garnered a fan base among family audiences for hits such as Shrek Forever After, Sky High and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, and has a proven track record taking legendary characters on new adventures. Rivinoja has been lauded for her work on comedies including “South Park” and “Up All Night.” Under the direction of this new creative team Trolls will be distributed by Twentieth Century Fox on November 4, 2016.
“Mike and Erica are the perfect team to reimagine this film,” said Chief Creative Officer Bill Damaschke. “Mike’s pedigree in shaping stories with already beloved characters is second to none, and Erica’s amazing sense of comedy will introduce the Trolls to a new generation of fans while keeping the spirit and appeal audiences have loved for years.”
The film, which will be a grand scale musical comedy centering around how the Trolls came into their vibrant and colorful hair, will be produced by Gina Shay (Shrek Forever After).
The Troll doll phenomenon was born in 1959 when Danish fisherman and woodcutter Thomas Dam, too poor to afford a Christmas present for his young daughter Lajla, carved a doll for her based on the legendary Scandinavian troll. This modern-day Geppetto couldn’t have imagined that the Troll dolls would soon become one of the biggest toy crazes of the 1960s. The Trolls experienced a resurgence in the 1990s and their uniquely endearing faces and shocks of colorful hair continue to capture the hearts and imaginations of fans around the world.
