Strange World Already Set A Disney Record Before It Even Hits Theaters
Disney has just released the trailer for "Strange World," the 61st animated film from Walt Disney Feature Animation, and based on the visuals provided, the land of Avalonia is a marvel to look at and get lost in. The movie is expected to follow the adventures of Searcher Clade (Jake Gyllenhaal), a farmer, and his wife Meridian (Gabrielle Union), a pilot whose sense of adventure is naturally more wondrous than her husband's. Along with their son Ethan (Jaboukie Young-White), they travel to the strange world of Avalonia, which reunites Searcher Clade with his father Jaeger (Dennis Quaid), long stranded on the planet. Their quest through the land is guided by Callisto Mal (Lucy Liu). If the "Strange World" cast isn't exciting enough, its story is equally as captivating.
As the characters embark on their quest through the world, the animators have worked overtime crafting mind-blowing computer effects to capture the majestic wonder of Avalonia. This is a land that evokes the marvels of "Zootopia" and San Fransokyo from "Big Hero 6," but on a much larger scale. The film is scheduled to be released on November 23, 2022 (per Twitter), and it has already set a Disney record before the purchase of a ticket.
Avalonia is the largest environment ever crafted in a Disney animated film
Disney Feature Animation has always crafted fantasy worlds within many classic stories. Be it the underwater realm of Atlantis in 2001's "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" or the mythical land of Prydain in the often-forgotten "The Black Cauldron" from 1985, the studio excels in world-building. But Avalonia from "Strange World" is an entirely different example of exquisite visual effects thanks to the possibilities of computer animation. During an interview on the Beyond the Mouse Podcast (via The Front Row Network) with production designer Mehrdad Isvandi and Head of Environments Sean Jenkins, it was revealed Avalonia had broken the record to become the largest environment ever created by the studio.
When asked about the process behind making the environment, Jenkins replied, "Sure, yeah, I was going to say, I mean really the Avalonia, and then going into the Strange World, all of our environments start out driven by the story. So it's all in the need of the story. We'll get storyboards early on, [and] we'll start taking a look at those and really start working on 'what do we need to do in service of that particular scene and story that you are trying to tell?'" Once the narrative focus is established, he adds that it then becomes about "Working on the environment side with my Dad and the art team to really start defining the rules of the world." Based on the trailer, their work validates this perfectly.