The Wild Robot (2024)

The Wild Robot is a 2024 American animated science fiction film written and directed by Chris Sanders, based on the 2016 novel by Peter Brown. It was produced by DreamWorks Animation, and features the voices of Lupita Nyong'o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Matt Berry, Ving Rhames, Mark Hamill and Catherine O'Hara. The film follows a service robot shipwrecked on an island who must adapt to her surroundings, build relationships with the local wildlife and become the adoptive mother of an orphaned goose.

DreamWorks Animation bought the screenplay before the first novel's release in 2016. Sanders first encountered the original book through his daughter and was offered an opportunity to direct a film adaptation at DreamWorks. The film's visuals use a watercolor aesthetic, inspired by classic Disney animated films and the works of Hayao Miyazaki. Kris Bowers composed the score, marking his first score for a fully animated film. Development took four years on a budget of $78 million.

The Wild Robot premiered at the 49th Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2024, and was released in the United States on September 27, by Universal Pictures. The film received widespread acclaim from critics who praised it for its writing, animation, characters, score, visuals, emotional depth and voice acting. The film was a commercial success, grossing $334.5 million worldwide. Among its accolades, it received nine Annie Awards (including Best Animated Feature), won Best Animated Feature at the Critics' Choice Awards and Producers Guild of America Awards, and was nominated for four Golden Globe Awards and three Academy Awards, becoming DreamWorks' most-nominated film at the latter ceremony. A sequel based on Brown's second book The Wild Robot Escapes is in development.

Plot

A storm causes a Universal Dynamics cargo ship to lose six ROZZUM robots, which wash up on an uninhabited island. Only Unit 7134 survives and is accidentally activated by wildlife. "Roz" is called a monster by the frightened wildlife and injures herself trying to help them. Unable to find anyone needing her services, even after learning how to communicate with all animals, she signals for retrieval, but gets struck by lightning and is attacked by animals. While fleeing from an aggressive grizzly bear named Thorn, Roz accidentally crushes a goose nest, resulting in the destruction of all but one egg.

After Roz protects the egg from a hungry red fox named Fink, a gosling hatches, imprints on her and accidentally breaks her long-range transmitter. A mother opossum named Pinktail "provides" Roz with the task of caring for the gosling to ensure he can eat, swim, and fly by himself before the winter migration. Fink discovers he can benefit from Roz, who builds a shelter. Roz names the gosling Brightbill, and the three cohabitate. As Brightbill grows up, he is rejected by other geese. Upon discovering that Roz accidentally killed his family, Brightbill feels betrayed.

Roz reconstructs ROZZUM unit 6262, nicknames her "Rummage", and asks for advice. Rummage, giving her transmitter to Roz, tells her to return to the Universal Dynamics factory. Roz enlists the help of a peregrine falcon named Thunderbolt to help Brightbill learn to fly and receives advice from Longneck, a leader for the geese's migration, allowing Brightbill to master flying just in time to join the migration. Missing Brightbill and unsure of her continued purpose, Roz reactivates her transmitter but shuts it off immediately after Universal Dynamics detects her signal.

During the migration, a thunderstorm forces the geese to shelter inside a Universal Dynamics greenhouse, triggering a contamination alert that sets reconnaissance (RECO) robots after them. Longneck sacrifices himself so Brightbill can lead the flock to safety. Meanwhile, Roz and Fink save the island's animals during a severe snowstorm, urging them to a truce supported by Thorn before Roz powers down.

By springtime, Roz reawakens to find the animals still following the truce and Brightbill returning, hailed as a hero. Shortly after, a Universal Dynamics dropship captained by a Virtual Observational Neutralizing Troublesome Retrieval Authority ("Vontra") robot arrives to recover Roz. Roz flees with Fink, pursued by RECO robots dispatched by Vontra. The animals band together to fight off the RECOs, but Vontra detonates the damaged RECOs to incapacitate and capture Roz, starting a forest fire in the process. The geese and Thunderbolt attack the dropship so Brightbill can save Roz as Fink and the others extinguish the fire. Despite Roz appearing to have been shut down by Vontra, her love for Brightbill restores her systems. Roz destroys Vontra and evacuates Brightbill as the dropship explodes.

Roz decides to return to Universal Dynamics to protect the island from future attacks but promises to return. The animals continue to live together on the island while Roz works at another Universal Dynamics greenhouse, maintaining her memories. Brightbill visits her, and the two embrace.

Voice cast

Lupita Nyong'o as:

ROZZUM unit 7134 ("Roz"), an abandoned robot from the tech company Universal Dynamics that was washed onto an island and learns to adapt to the new environment. The name of her product line, ROZZUM, and her manufacturer are references to Rossum's Universal Robots, the play that created the term "robot".

ROZZUM unit 6262 ("Rummage"), a broken robot that was washed onto the same island as Roz who gives Roz her transmitter to return home

Pedro Pascal as Fink, a sly but well-meaning red fox who is the first animal that Roz befriends

Finnegan and other foxes from the SaveAFox Rescue provide Fink's vocal effects.

Kit Connor as Brightbill, an orphaned runt Barnacle goose who is raised by Roz as her own son after she accidentally killed his biological family

Boone Storme as Baby Brightbill

Catherine O'Hara as Pinktail, a maternal Virginia opossum who gives Roz advice on raising Brightbill.

Bill Nighy as Longneck, a wise, elderly barnacle goose who helps Roz understand teaching Brightbill how to fly

Stephanie Hsu as Vontra (short for Virtual Observational Neutralizing Troublesome Retrieval Authority), a callous, tentacled robot sent by Universal Dynamics to retrieve Roz

Mark Hamill as Thorn, an aggressive grizzly bear and the island's apex predator who later befriends Roz and the other animals during the winter truce

Matt Berry as Paddler, a neurotic beaver who spends his days trying to gnaw down a giant tree

Ving Rhames as Thunderbolt, a peregrine falcon who helps Brightbill learn to fly

Randy Thom as the RECOs, reconnaissance robots designed by Universal Dynamics to serve Vontra

Production

Development

Before the release of The Wild Robot—a novel created by Peter Brown—in 2016, DreamWorks Animation bought the screenplay, setting the budget at $78 million. Chris Sanders first encountered Brown's book through his daughter, though he never read it himself. Years later, while looking for his next project at DreamWorks, Sanders was offered an opportunity to write and direct an adaptation of the book for the studio. Upon reading it, Sanders immediately fell in love with the story and felt he was the right person to adapt it to film. He described the book as "deceptively simple" and "emotionally complex". Sanders had previously considered the idea of a creature bonding with animals in a forest for his directorial debut Lilo & Stitch (2002). Sanders contacted Brown and would later describe the phone call as critical to the film's development. Brown told the production team that his intended theme for the book was that kindness could be a survival skill. Sanders sought to weave that theme through the film and felt he achieved that goal. Another theme in the story that Sanders was drawn to was that of motherhood. He felt he had never done a story of this nature before. Development took four years.

Changes were made to the book's story for the film. In the book, Roz is in constant search of a task but also in the wrong place and with no one to give her tasks. Sanders felt that she risked becoming monotonous at points in the story, so he strived to make Roz constantly interesting and compelling throughout. Some character roles from the book were reduced in order to give others more substantial screen time and impact. The changes to the characters and their roles were also made to prevent the film from overcrowding.

Casting

Cast members Lupita Nyong'o, Pedro Pascal, Catherine O'Hara, Bill Nighy, Kit Connor, Mark Hamill, Matt Berry and Ving Rhames were revealed on March 5, 2024, with the release of the film's first trailer.

Sanders wanted Roz to be a compelling character and felt an extraordinary voice performance was necessary to achieve this. He wanted to avoid a two-dimensional fictional take on a robot, where they go straight from being emotionless to emotional. Nyong'o was tasked with finding a voice for the character and evolving it as the story progressed. The actress's role was particularly important as Roz did not possess facial articulation. This meant Nyong'o's voice was the main way of signifying Roz's emotions.

According to Hamill, who voiced Thorn, he learned about the film after reading the book The Wild Robot. Hamill says that The Wild Robot reminded him of his first feelings about Star Wars (1977), in which he originated the role of Luke Skywalker.

Animation and design

The Wild Robot would be the final film to be animated entirely in-house at DreamWorks, as Cartoon Brew reported on October 6, 2023, that the studio would be shifting away from producing films in-house in their Glendale campus to relying more heavily on outside studios after 2024. Additional character rigging was done by French studio Stim Studio.

After reading the book, Sanders felt the story's innocent tone and natural setting required a look that strayed away from the standard CGI photorealism in many modern animated films. He and production designer Raymond Zibach wanted the film in its finished state to still resemble the concept paintings. To achieve this, the production team built upon the technologies used in two of DreamWorks' earlier films, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and The Bad Guys (both 2022). While the characters were made up of CGI geometrical shapes, their surfaces possess a hand-painted look. This painterly style philosophy was carried onto every visual element in the film, including the sky and environments.

Sanders took inspiration from classic Disney animated movies and the works of Hayao Miyazaki, resulting in a stylized CG visual style that he described as "a Monet painting in a Miyazaki forest". He considered Bambi (1942) and My Neighbour Totoro (1988) as the biggest influences on the visuals. The works of Syd Mead served as inspiration for the futuristic parts of the film.

Sanders wanted Roz's design to be memorable, and one that would take its place among fiction's most famous robots. Taking inspiration from C-3PO and R2-D2 from Star Wars and Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet (1956), he wanted Roz to have little facial articulation. Sanders and the rest of the design team made several prototype designs during production. One of the designers, Hyun Huh presented his Roz design to the crew, which became the basis for the one seen in the film. The crew immediately fell in love with Huh's design, with Sanders describing it as simple and appealing. Brown's original book described Roz with great detail, so Sanders and the team knew they had to leave some design elements out. Although on behalf of Brown's description of what a ROZZUM unit's purpose was to humans, they aimed for Roz's design to be humanoid.

Music

In March 2024, Kris Bowers was revealed to be composing the score, his first score for a fully animated film. Additionally, two original songs were announced to be made for the film, performed and co-written by Maren Morris. The first, "Kiss the Sky", was released on August 28; the second, "Even When I'm Not", along with the full soundtrack album, was released on September 27. Morris and her team of co-writers were inspired to write a second song for the film, "Even When I'm Not", which is featured in the film's end credits, when they screened the finished film.

Themes

The Wild Robot incorporates environmental themes throughout its narrative, including a reference to climate change in a sequence depicting a futuristic San Francisco with a partially submerged Golden Gate Bridge. DreamWorks Animation developed the film in collaboration with both Universal's GreenerLight Program and the Natural Resources Defense Council's Rewrite the Future initiative, with environmental experts consulting on the ecological elements and a sustainability-focused PSA featuring Lupita Nyong'o. The film's environmental themes were showcased at Climate Week NYC 2024, where it received a special screening at the inaugural Climate Film Festival.

Release

The Wild Robot had its world premiere as the opening front runner of the Toronto International Film Festival Grand Opening celebration on September 8, 2024. It was initially scheduled for release on September 20, but was postponed to September 27. This shift was reportedly made to avoid competition with Transformers One.

On December 29, 2024, it was announced that The Wild Robot would be re-released in theaters in the US on January 17, 2025.

Marketing

The first trailer for the film, featuring a rendition of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World", plus a poster, were released on March 5, 2024. The trailer debuted in theaters three days later in front of screenings of DreamWorks' other new film Kung Fu Panda 4. Writing for Polygon, Tasha Robinson compared the design of Roz to familiar film robots such as BB-8 (the Star Wars sequel trilogy), WALL-E (in his titular film), Baymax (from Big Hero 6), and The Iron Giant (in his titular film), and noted that the only words spoken in the trailer - "Sometimes, to survive, we must become more than we were programmed to be" - evoked the message of The Iron Giant (1999).

Home media

The Wild Robot was released to rent on digital streaming on October 15, 2024, and on Blu-ray and DVD on December 3.

Reception

Box office

The Wild Robot has grossed $143.9 million in the United States and Canada, and $189.9 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $334.1 million.

In the United States and Canada, The Wild Robot was released alongside Megalopolis, and was projected to gross $24–30 million from 3,962 theaters in its opening weekend. The film made $11.2 million on its first day, including an estimated $1.9 million from Thursday previews. The film went on to debut to $35.8 million, slightly above predictions and topping the box office. In its second weekend, the film made $18.9 million (a drop of 47% from its first weekend), finishing in second behind newcomer Joker: Folie à Deux. In its third weekend the film made $14 million (dropping just 25.9%), finishing in second behind newcomer Terrifier 3. The film then made $10.1 million and $6.8 million in its fourth and fifth weekends, respectively.

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 97% of 259 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "A simple tale told with great sophistication, The Wild Robot is wondrous entertainment that dazzles the eye while filling your heart to the brim." It is DreamWorks Animation's second highest-rated film on the site, behind How to Train Your Dragon (2010). Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 85 out of 100, based on 46 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while those surveyed by PostTrak gave it a 96% overall positive score, with 62% saying they would definitely recommend it.

Natalia Winkelman of The New York Times called the film "a dazzling triumph of animation" and wrote "this is a work that cares most about two things: big feelings and great beauty". Pete Hammond of Deadline Hollywood said, "If Spielberg's E.T. had been an animated film instead, it might resemble what writer-director Chris Sanders has created here. However, Wild Robot weaves its own magic and for that we can all cry tears of joy." Adrian Horton, writing for The Guardian said: "Clever, heartfelt and frequently stunning, The Wild Robot offers the type of all-ages-welcome animated entertainment that will delight kids and leave a lump in one's throat." Adam Graham of Detroit News gave it a "B-" and wrote: "It's heartwarming the way a latter-era Coldplay track is heartwarming: by design, so its effect feels somewhat synthetic." Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph gave the film a five out of five scoring, saying, "DreamWorks was founded 30 years ago this month, and this well-timed anniversary release is their richest, most moving film since 1998's reputation-making The Prince of Egypt." In his review for Vulture, Bilge Ebiri praised Nyong'o's performance and found that it "turn[ed] this heartwarming family film into an unforgettable one".

Collider thought it was one of Sanders's best films yet, while Screen Rant called it the best animated film of the year.

Filmmakers Tim Fehlbaum, Jeff Fowler, Reinaldo Marcus Green, Chad Hartigan, Matt Johnson, Dana Ledoux Miller and Juel Taylor all cited the film as among their favorites of 2024.

Viewership

According to data from Showlabs, The Wild Robot ranked fifth on Netflix in the United States during the week of 26 May–1 June 2025.

Accolades

Sequel

In September 2024, when asked about a potential sequel, Sanders stated, "I would very much like to. This was a labor of love on the part of everybody at the studio, and yes, I think I'd love to go and stay here for a while." In October 2024, he confirmed that a sequel is in development.

In March 2026, it was announced that Troy Quane would direct the sequel, based on and titled after Brown's second book The Wild Robot Escapes, with head of story Heidi Jo Gilbert co-directing and Sanders returning to write the screenplay.

See also

Robot Dreams, a 2023 animated feature adaptation of a graphic novel also featuring robots and animals

Notes

References

External links

Official website

The Wild Robot at IMDb

Official screenplay

Production design

A video on the film's unique animation style on YouTube