Netflix and Skydance have teamed up for a brand new fantasy adventure called Spellbound, which makes its global debut next month. From Shrek director Vicky Jenson, and iconic Disney composer Alan Menken, Spellbound aims to be an animated tentpole for Netflix, one that can help the streamer compete with giants like Disney and Pixar this awards season.
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On Tuesday morning, Netflix released the first trailer for Spellbound, which you can check out in the video above.
Spellbound stars Rachel Zegler as the main character, Ellian, who is the young daughter of the rulers of Lumbria. After a terrible spell transforms her parents into monsters, Ellian must go on a quest to save her entire kingdom.
In addition to Zegler, Spellbound stars John Lithgow, Jenifer Lewis, Tituss Burgess, Nathan Lane with Javier Bardem, and Nicole Kidman. The film hits Netflix on November 22nd.
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“I can’t think of Ellian without thinking of Rachel Zegler. She just IS Ellian,” Jenson said of the Spellbound star. “She’s got such a wonderful, charismatic personality, very real and fresh. She’s a great actress and a stunning singer. When we met and started working with her she was just down for it, down to play, to try anything. Even in her earliest demos of the songs she was weeping, she was laughing, she just brought everything and left nothing on the table. A lot of what she did in those early days is still in the movie, it was just that good. Rachel is one of a kind. She simply has everything.”
Jenson went on to explain why she holds a story like Spellbound so near and dear to her heart, and why fantasy films like this one (and Shrek) are a way to honor her family.
“Mythology and fairytales have always been part of my life and upbringing,” the director explained. “My father, the son of immigrant Romanian parents, was an aspiring writer and my mother, raised in Costa Rica by literary parents, taught us to love the arts and old family ghost stories. Storytelling runs deep in our families!
“Spellbound is about what it is that really makes a family. Like any timeless myth or lasting fairytale, I believe the meaning reaches even further than the specifics of this family’s dynamic. It speaks to kids and their parents and the kinds of alienation that can happen between them as well as the steps we have to take toward each other, how we can weather it together, to come through to the other side with better understanding.”
