ComingSoon Senior Editor Spencer Legacy spoke with The Magician’s Elephant author Kate DiCamillo, director Wendy Rogers, and producer Julia Pistor. The movie is set to debut on Netflix on March 17.
“When young Peter, who is searching for his long-lost sister, crosses paths with a fortune teller in the market square, there is only one question on his mind: is his sister still alive? The answer — that he must follow a mysterious elephant — sets Peter off on a remarkable journey to complete three seemingly impossible tasks that magically change the face of his town forever,” reads the film’s synopsis.
Spencer Legacy: Wendy, what was it about The Magician’s Elephant that made you really want to direct an adaptation of the book?
Wendy Rogers: I read the book in the course of an evening and my heart was in my throat — great lumps of love for Peter, for the moments of questioning, “What if?” For the moments of his determination to find his sister. I just needed to help him find his sister. It was an amazing opportunity and a blessing to be connected with this project.
Kate, your works have become films before with Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tale of Despereaux . Has your involvement in adapting these stories changed over the years?
Kate DiCamillo: It’s different for each film. I don’t remember when it was — we had that meeting, Julia — it was during the pandemic. I got to see some of what y’all were working on. So I got sneak peaks here and there, but it was just this wonderful thing that happened. I didn’t have to do any work for it at all [Laugh]. I just had to stand back and marvel and over the finished product and be deeply moved by it.
Julia, the movie has a really impressive cast, with talent like Noah Jupe and Benedict Wong. What did it mean to get such talent to portray these characters in this story?
Julia Pistor: Well, it meant a lot. The fact that we got this cast meant that we had done our job in taking the wonderful ensemble of characters that are in the book and bringing them, dimensionalizing them for film and coming up with really great character designs. You never know when you go out to talent: will they respond to the story? Will they respond to the way they’re going to look? In an animated movie, they don’t look like themselves. And everybody we went out to said, “Yes, yes, yes, we want to make this movie.” It was also really important to us that the cast and the ensemble be from people that just are from different heritages — an eclectic look of different types of people. So it was really exciting to get such a varied cast as well.
Wendy, with any adaptation, you know, certain characters and story elements have to be streamlined or changed a bit. Was it difficult to fit this story into a movie or did it lend itself quite well already?
Wendy Rogers: So it is an ensemble and it’s always difficult to make an ensemble film. And there were some changes from the characters in the book and the adaptation obviously adds an act two that has more action, with the king and the three impossible tasks that give Peter an opportunity to really show his grit and determination and taking action to believe and show his belief in the impossible. Not just a static belief, but an active belief. But the feeling from the book, the themes from the book, are all there and many of the characters are very true to the book.
Kate, it must be amazing to see your work made visual and into a film. Do you have a favorite scene or moment that you were particularly excited to see animated?
Kate DiCamillo: It’s funny because we were just talking about my favorite moment in the film, and so I’ll start there rather than not what I was looking for, but what I was so moved about by seeing on screen, and that’s when Peter is sitting at eating stew and he doesn’t know what it is. He says, “This is so good. What is it?” And Gloria says, “It’s stew” and that contains multitudes, that moment, and that connection and love and sitting around a table together, and it moves me to tears.
