The Wild Robot author Peter Brown discussed the DreamWorks movie adaptation with ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese. Brown discussed his sequel hopes, the changed ending, and making plenty of adults cry. The Wild Robot is now available on digital to watch at home. It will then come out on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray on December 3, 2024
“The epic adventure follows the journey of a robot – ROZZUM unit 7134, ‘Roz’ for short – that is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and must learn to adapt to the harsh surroundings, gradually building relationships with the animals on the island and becoming the adoptive parent of an orphaned gosling,” says the synopsis.
Tyler Treese: Peter, congrats on the film. I was just curious: how are the feelings of seeing this released out into the world? All these new fans come to it, and it’s very much based on your book, but it was also done by other artists despite your involvement in the process. That seems like a weird place for a creator to be.
Peter Brown: It is a little weird, I’ll be honest with you. It’s a little weird. The Wild Robot book was published in 2016, and so that’s eight years ago. For eight years, it’s been kind of my baby, and there’s a few other books in the series. So now, all of a sudden, there’s The Wild Robot movie, and yeah, there’s a whole new audience, and the characters look a little different, and the story’s a little different.
So, it’s certainly a little strange, but it’s also really exciting because I love animation, and I’m just so excited that Chris Sanders, the director, and the whole team at DreamWorks used my book as the inspiration to make such a beautiful movie, beautiful story, and beautiful visually, you know? I think we’ve all kind of gotten used to seeing animated films that look quite similar to each other. This movie doesn’t. This movie has its own distinct look. The backgrounds are gorgeously painted, and the characters are interesting. I’m just thrilled that they ended up doing something pretty special as a result of my book.
We’ve seen sub-par adaptations, and they knocked it out of the park with this one. When they were sending you during production the looks at it, when did it sink in that this was gonna be something pretty special? Because it just looks phenomenal, and it’s so heart-wrenching.
It takes years to make an animated film. So, I’ve been talking with Chris and Jeff Herman, the producer, since 2020, I believe, is when we first started these conversations. So I got to see this whole evolution of the look as they were ironing out the character designs and the look of the backgrounds and everything. It was a real process, and there was a lot of trial and error and experimentation. But I knew pretty early on that it was gonna be special because Chris was really determined. He said from the outset that he wanted the movie to feel more illustrative than other movies, and he was really focused on finding a way to make it feel painterly. I could tell from the way he talked about it that he meant business.
So, I was excited to see what it turned into. As a real lover of animation, I’ve honestly been kind of disappointed with a lot of animation because it all looks so similar. It’s such a flexible medium; you can do anything with it, right? So why do so many movies look the same? I was so happy to hear what Chris had planned, and then to see the finished result really kind of blew me away. I didn’t see the finished movie until I sat down at the world premiere of the movie at the Toronto International Film Festival. I was practically in tears throughout the movie because it was just so beautiful, you know?
No, practically for me, I was fully in tears during the film. How has it been just seeing the movie with crowds, be it like TIFF or other screenings? I saw so many grown adults just bawling at this. It seems to be impacting them even more than the kids.
Absolutely. That’s actually one of the things that I’m happiest about with the film. In the book, I worked really hard to create a story that was age-appropriate for young readers but that had something for everyone and had a level of depth and emotion that might not be so common in books for that age group. [Something that] may make parents, who might read my book to their kids, feel these strong emotions. That was a big part of the books. I was so happy that they kept that kind of emotionality in the movie. It would’ve been so easy to turn it into another [movie] of just non-stop gags for an hour and a half, and there are plenty of jokes in The Wild Robot movie, but there’s so much heart in it.
Every screening I’ve been to, I just hear people sniffling and crying, you know, throughout much of the movie, you know? That makes me personally really happy just to make a movie and a book that makes people feel surprising emotions that maybe they weren’t expecting to feel, to really kind of connect with their own humanity while they’re watching this movie or reading this book. That’s really incredibly satisfying for me.
I wanted to ask you about the ending change because it’s a bit different than the book, but to see them reunite is kind of like a warm hug for the audience. Did you like how they handled that?
We talked a lot about this because I know Chris and Jeff, the director and producer, they really appreciated the ending in the book. It’s a little bit of a cliffhanger. It’s a little bit sad. It’s kind of unfamiliar. We’re used to everything being wrapped up in a nice, tidy, happy ending. So they were trying to walk this line of creating a little bit of that experience but not having people walk out the door disappointed with the ending, right? They wanna make sure people are feeling good as they walk out of that theater, you know? So I think they kind of nailed it, actually. The ending is a little mysterious. We get to see Roz and Brightbill together, but we don’t really know what the future holds for them. So, I think they got it just right, actually.
They’re already talking about a sequel. Just how good is it that you actually have two sequel books already out there, so it’s not like a super weird situation where it’s just a totally different thing, whole cloth?
Yeah, there are three books, and who knows if all three or two or who knows how many more movies will be made. It’s not official just yet. We’re hoping there’ll be at least a sequel. There’s a second book called The Wild Robot Escapes, which I know Chris and Jeff have read and loved. I feel like the two first books in the series really are one big story. So I think they’re really hoping to get the green light to make that happen. But we’ll see, we’ll see. I don’t know. I don’t wanna get ahead of myself, but I’m cautiously optimistic that there will be a sequel, and I know a lot of us are hoping that’ll happen.
Thanks to Peter Brown for discussing The Wild Robot. Find more information on his books on his website.
