The Wild Robot director Chris Sanders and producer Jeff Hermann spoke with ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese about the DreamWorks movie adaptation of the hit book. The duo discussed the visual progression of Roz, Pedro Pascal getting to be himself, and more. 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
“From DreamWorks Animation comes a new dalton of a literary sensation, Peter Brown’s beloved, award-winning, #1 New York Times bestseller, The Wild Robot. 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: Chris, I wanted to ask you specifically about Roz and the state of disrepair she gets in throughout The Wild Robot. Because I thought that was such a great way of effectively showing the stakes and the sacrifice for what she’s doing. Could you speak to showing that visually?
Chris Sanders: We always had the idea, and it’s part of the book as well, that the more time that Roz spends on the island, the more she becomes a real arguably denizen of that place, a citizen of the island. She really starts to belong there. She starts out as one of the very rare CG elements that are on screen when she comes outta the box at the very beginning.
Her surfacing is traditional CG surfacing, but she’s emerging into a world that we created that is a painted world, and we have 30 plus versions of her that we begin to trade out almost immediately. She becomes more damaged. She gets scratches and dents, and she gets mildew on her surface and things like that. So immediately, she begins to visually transition into a painted-surfaced creature, just like all of our other characters are.
There are many iterations of her that we trade out, and it was part of the story that I really enjoyed was the idea that the more damage that she’s taking on the outside, the stronger she’s getting on the inside, which is such a wonderful thing like that. It’s amongst the things in the film that are very relatable, I think, to our own situations.
Jeff, what about the original book in that novel made it a really good fit for DreamWorks to adapt and made you think it would work as a film?
Jeff Hermann: I think we all, upon first reading that book, understood the potential for it. Not just as a film, but particularly as an animated film, right? Because humans are in this world, but they’re around the periphery, particularly in this first book. So it’s really a robot and animals, which nothing can bring that to the screen better than animation can. So, it’s the perfect medium for this type of story.
Then, for it to have so many relatable themes that are relevant to all of us as people. I mean, it’s really telling a story about the human condition, but with animals and robots. So, all of those things together, I think, made it a perfect vehicle for animation. We kind of recognized that from the start, and honestly, we were all begging and pleading and jockeying to get into position to be on this film.
Chris, I wanted to ask you about the ending, because we get that reunion at the end. How important was it to leave it on that hopeful note? Because before that, it was kind of melancholy and a little bit sad, so it was nice to get that hug there, and I feel like the audience received that hug as well.
Sanders: Yeah, so the original book that this was based on by Peter Brown ends with Roz returning to the mainland where she was built. We wanted to stay true to that. I was really concerned about that, and I was concerned that we not presume success in that, like, “Oh, we’re gonna leave this on a cliffhanger” or something like that. I wanted this to be a self-contained, satisfying film that would stand on its own forever.
So I wrote two different endings, one where she returns to the mainland and one where she actually stays on the island. To our execs’ credit, Margie and Kristin immediately responded and said, “No, have her go back,” stay true to the book, and I love that. Then the trick became, if she is going to return to the mainland as she does in the book, I didn’t want people in the theater to feel so devastated and upset that they would text their friends and go, “Don’t see this. It’s gonna ruin your life.”
We needed something that was affirming and that also wrapped everything up in a way that we feel satisfied. That was that last little bit that I added where Brightbill on, presumably his very next migration, he stops off at the domed bio-building to see if he could find Roz and that they have that little hug and, of course, to affirm and let everybody know that indeed she didn’t get reset. Yeah, it’s still her. She’s still Roz.
Jeff, you guys had such an incredible voice cast in The Wild Robot. Everybody nailed it, but I wanted to ask you about Pedro Pascal’s performance as the fox because I thought he just brought such a heart and mischievous nature to that character. I thought that seeing the bond between him and Roz throughout the film was so wonderfully done. How was it, uh, just seeing him bring that character to life?
Hermann: That was really a great part of this process was defining Fink, and Pedro really was key to us unlocking the full potential of that character. What you’re reacting to is basically who Pedro is in real life. Like he is that goofy, affable, funny guy in real life. He doesn’t always get to portray that on screen, and in casting him on the film, we had been gravitating more towards talk show footage of him or him being himself on camera as opposed to clips of him from other films. Because what we thought the character could be was who he actually was as a person coming across as being himself.
That was also a little bit of a challenge when we finally got Pedro into the recording booth behind the microphone to understand that that’s what we were going for. Because he assumed we cast him because of all the other stuff he’s done, which is very stoic and very different types of roles. Once he warmed up to that idea of being comfortable being himself behind the microphone, he actually thanked us in retrospect for it because he said this role is closer to who he is as a person than anything else he’s gotten to play. But that he was absolutely key in us really pushing the full potential of who Fink is.
Chris, Lilo & Stitch is obviously your baby and are so important to my generation. How special was it getting to voice him again for the live-action film?
Sanders: It was amazing. I’m really grateful that they reached out to me for that. I’ve done four sessions now. I would imagine there might be one last one for me just as they finalize because I think they were still in flux in a lot of things. So, they might call me in, I think, one last time, but that was great. I really liked it, and I always do the voice for things like ice shows and parades and toys. So I’m in the studio about at least six times a year just to do like all sorts of other things.
Thanks to Chris Sanders and Jeff Hermann for taking time to talk about The Wild Robot.
