Mike Rianda Talks New Movie, The Mitchells Vs. The Machines forbes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from forbes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Mitchells vs. the Machines feels apt: it adds a layer of meta significance to an already very self-reflexive film.
Mitchells is interested in the role of tech in our world particularly the intrusion of screens into family life and it will now be watched at home, on small screens, vying for viewers’ attention with the smartphones in their pockets.
Katie Mitchell (Abbi Jacobson) is a teenage misfit and keen amateur filmmaker: her viral Youtube videos have secured her a place at California College of Film, which she’s about to take up. Her artistic efforts are largely ignored by her father Rick (Danny McBride), whose technophobia has created a rift between them. In a clumsy attempt to make amends, he organizes a surprise family road trip, which goes awry when the world’s machines stage a diabolical uprising.
4/30/2021
A barely functional family becomes humanity s last hope when a robot apocalypse led by evil Olivia Colman interrupts their road trip in this Sony Animation feature, premiering on Netflix.
A lot of primo animation talent is assembled for
The Mitchells vs. the Machines, including producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who were behind
The Lego Movie and
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and writer-directors Mike Rianda and Jeff Rowe, late of the popular Disney Channel toon series
Gravity Falls. Their fast-paced fantasy adventure involves an ordinary family tasked with singlehandedly halting a robot apocalypse that threatens to wipe out humanity. It sounds even better when you learn that the A.I. uprising is led by Olivia Colman as the voice of a spurned smartphone digital assistant, with a Furby army at her command.
Sony Pictures Animation’s
Connected, a promising feature from first-time director Mike Rianda, was starting to look like a casualty of Covid. As other films danced around the 2021 calendar in search of a safe release date,
Connected went quiet.
Now the film has found a home and a new title. It will be released later this year on Netflix, the great refuge for theater-skeptic studios who lack their own big streaming platform. The film will come out as
The Mitchells vs. The Machines, which was its original working title.
Rianda is a former writer and creative director of hit Disney series