CS Video: George Lucas and the Cast of Strange Magic

George Lucas has been noticeably absent since Lucasfilm was bought by Walt Disney Pictures in October 2012. In fact, he had secretly been working on an animated fairy tale musical called Strange Magic (which in fact, ComingSoon.net reported on way back in January 2010) and now that movie’s finally done and ready to see by family audiences.

Strange Magic takes us into a fantasy world divided into two sections, the Dark Forest full of trolls, goblins and other creatures, led by Bog King (voiced by Alan Cumming), and the Fairy Kingdom, home to the fairies. The king of the Fairy Kingdom has two daughters, the feisty Marianne (Evan Rachel Wood) and her love-struck sister Dawn (Meredith Anne Bull). As the Bog King tries to destroy the flowers that border the two kingdoms, Marianne is dealing with relationship when Dawn and her elf friend Sunny (Elijah Kelley from “Hairspray”) are trapped in the Dark Forest, so Marianne has to go in to save them.

This is very much a musical and besides getting an impressive voice cast whom all have done their share of musicals, Lucas and director Gary Rydstrom have created a soundtrack mixing contemporary pop hits with rock and soul classics like Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and the Four Tops’ “I Can’t Help Myself,” all arranged by Marius de Vries, who famously performed the same duties on Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge!

Last week, ComingSoon.net spoke with George Lucas and three of his voice actors–Alan Cumming, Evan Rachel Wood and Elijah Kelley–talking about how they found out about the movie and were able to keep it a secret for so long as well as some of the challenges of singing duets without the other person performing in the room with you.

You can watch highlights of those interviews in the video player below. Strange Magic opens in theaters on Friday, January 23 with previews on Thursday night.