Are those untitled feature dates real on the 2024 theatrical release calendar? Yes, they are with Universal dating DreamWorks Animation‘s The Wild Robot for Sept. 20, 2024.
Pic is an adaptation of Peter Brown’s award-winning, #1 New York Times bestseller, The Wild Robot. The movie follows the epic 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.
The Wild Robot is directed by three-time Oscar nominee Chris Sanders—the writer-director of DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon, The Croods, and Disney’s Lilo & Stitch—and is produced by Jeff Hermann (DreamWorks Animation’s The Boss Baby 2: Family Business; co-producer, Kung Fu Panda franchise).
Peter Brown’s The Wild Robot, an illustrated middle-grade novel first published in 2016, earned the Caldecott Honor and rocketed to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. The book has since inspired a trilogy that now includes The Wild Robot Escapes and The Wild Robot Protects. Brown’s work on the Wild Robot series and his other bestselling books have earned him a Horn Book Award, two E.B. White Awards, two E.B. White Honors, a Children’s Choice Award for Illustrator of the Year, two Irma Black Honors, a Golden Kite Award and a New York Times Best Illustrated Book Award.
Mid to late September is a prime spot for animated fare with movies such as Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and DreamWorks’ own Abominable having launched in that corridor. SpinMaster and Paramount’s Paw Patrol: The Might Movie opened to $22.7M during the last frame of this past September.