1 month ago
EXCLUSIVE: Stuart Ford’s AGC Studios is launching world income up of nan Cannes marketplace connected AI-produced family animation Critterz.
Written by duo James Lamont and Jon Foster (Paddington successful Peru) and screenwriter Tom Butterworth (Birthday Girl), nan “human-led but AI-assisted” task is being positioned arsenic 1 of nan first mainstream commercialized family movies to usage AI passim its accumulation pipeline.
The book is written by Lamont, Foster and Butterworth and directed and produced by Nik Kleverov, co-founder of AI outfit Native Foreign, pinch Chad Nelson, imaginative strategist astatine OpenAI, serving arsenic a shaper pinch Allan Niblo and James Richardson of UK accumulation and distribution outfit Vertigo Films (Britannia). Pascal Breton, Lionel Uzan, Jane Moore, Stuart Ford and Aghi Koh are executive producers.
The movie follows “an anxious but brave small woodland animal who unites pinch a group of eccentric outcasts—each pinch their ain peculiar quirks and hidden strengths—on a high-stakes quest to find her long-lost brother.” Above is simply a first look astatine nan characters. AGC will show first footage successful Cannes. Voice cast, which we understand will beryllium human, has yet to beryllium set.
We understand nan fund is successful nan $30M but would person been importantly higher had it been made successful accepted manner. The animated characteristic is simply a full-length adjustment of nan 2023 viral short of nan aforesaid name, created by Chad Nelson. The short was 1 of nan first movie to usage OpenAI’s imaginative tools.
When accumulation of Critterz was announced successful September 2025, nan LA Times asked whether it heralded “AI’s Toy Story moment”.
Kleverov claimed: “Critterz will beryllium a timeless movie – a world that feels genuinely its own. It will transportation nan wonderment of nan ‘80s imagination movies I grew up connected – nan scrappy, adventurous tone of The Goonies and nan mythic, affectional scope of The NeverEnding Story… mixed pinch nan standard of early Star Wars. It’s grounded successful thing profoundly human: a fractured world uncovering its measurement backmost together. At nan halfway is simply a characteristic whose top powerfulness isn’t unit – it’s believing successful herself, and her family.”
AGC’s CEO Ford added: “We are thrilled to subordinate Vertigo and Native Foreign successful bringing nan much-anticipated Critterz to nan industry. This ground-breaking characteristic demonstrates for nan first clip really AI tin merge into accumulation without replacing artistry, becoming a instrumentality for exploration alternatively than substitution. Filmmakers style nan story, characters, and emotions and AI provides nan brushstrokes that we judge tin bring a caller franchise to life for families astir nan world.”
Vertigo’s Richardson stated: “We’re delighted to beryllium partnering pinch AGC to show nan world really awesome artists and storytellers tin utilize this unthinkable exertion to do nan only point that really matters – make a awesome movie. Critterz is simply a beautiful, heartwarming and thrilling communicative and Nik, Chad, nan writers and nan imaginative squad person created genuinely unsocial pinch standard and ambition to wow, lukewarm nan hearts and put smiles connected nan faces of family audiences worldwide.”
