‘Forgotten Island’ Directors Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado on Their Wild New DreamWorks Original

Ready to visit DreamWorks Animation’s “Forgotten Island?”

The latest film from the studio that brought you “Shrek” and “The Wild Robot” was written and directed by Joel Crawford, director of the Oscar-nominated “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” and “The Croods: A New Age,” and his frequent partner Januel Mercado and was produced by Mark Swift, another “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” and “Croods 2” veteran.

The official synopsis describes “Forgotten Island” as “a dazzling and emotional story about two lifelong best friends who must come together before they drift apart.” It stars H.E.R. (Gabriella Wilson) and Liza Soberano, along with Manny Jacinto, Ronny Chieng, Lea Salonga, Jenny Slate and Dave Franco.

“Forgotten Island” promises to combine the cutting-edge visual inventiveness of “The Last Wish” with entirely new sensibilities, including a retro-cool 1990s setting and a rich emphasis on Philippine mythology. But maybe you should just watch the brand-new trailer for “Forgotten Island,” hitting theaters on Sept. 25, below.

TheWrap spoke to Crawford and Mercado at DreamWorks’ Glendale, California campus shortly after watching the trailer, a sizzle reel and a brief sequence that sets up the world (or is it worlds?) of “Forgotten Island.” The movie was partially inspired by the friendship between Crawford and Mercado, who started working together on DreamWorks’ “Kung Fu Panda 2,” as it tells the story of friends (Wilson and Soberano) who discover a portal to another world – a fantastical adventure that could mean that all of their time together could slip away. Of course, they encounter crazy creatures and strange beings, all borrowed from folklore of the Philippines.

Coming from two franchise films, Crawford and Mercado knew they wanted to do something original, even though they are typically much more difficult to get through the pipeline.

“With an original, you have no fan base. You have to start generating your fan base. We’re living in an age now where so many things have been well branded. You have years and decades of a fan base. We knew that the challenge of just coming up with something for nothing, that there has to be a personal story that we can connect to,” explained Mercado.

“It’s not easy getting an original made. Every original movie that comes out, we are cheering so loudly. It’s essential that these movies are popular. We can’t just keep rehashing and adding sequels. It has been an uphill battle but Margie [Cohn, president and CEO] and Kristin Lowe [CCO, features] have trusted us from the very beginning,” explained Crawford. “When we pitched this project, there were concerns of it’s a story about two best friends and celebrating memories. And then it’s set culturally in the Philippines. All of those ingredients, on a studio level, do ask questions of like, Is the audience too small? Is the is the scope too small? Where is our third act battle? Margie and Kristin responsibly asked us these questions but then trusted us to give them and were patient when we delivered the answer.”

The first step, according to Crawford, was showing them the expanse of the story. The pitch might have seemed small but it “is actually its superpower.” It’s an animated movie about memories and friendship and the animation allowed them to bring those memories to life in a way that only they could accomplish. Through each step of the production, “Forgotten Island” has gained new fans – at DreamWorks Animation and parent company Universal.

“It hasn’t been easy, but it’s all the more rewarding now that people are seeing not only how big this movie is, how universal it is, but also how unique it is because it really is the road less traveled,” Crawford said. “It is hard to do these originals, so it’s been really rewarding in that way.”

“Typically, what makes a big movie? People tend to think about the spectacle and the blockbuster thing – a big, epic movie with big battles, and the end of the world is the stakes. But we said, What if the end of the world stakes is actually your best friend forgets who you are?” said Mercado. “And that that is what really interests us personally. It doesn’t have to be the world blowing up, it could be losing someone that you love.”

If there’s anything that Crawford and Mercado are known for, Crawford said, it’s taking big swings, even within the confines of a preexisting franchise (like the painterly art style they employed for “Puss in Boots” or the narrative left turns that populated “Croods 2”). They pride themselves, Crawford said, “in a very positive way, going against the grain.” They brought that to “Forgotten Island” in a big way.

“When we were in the development stage, we were always asking ourselves, why? Because we’ve seen too many things that get made or pushed along without answering that question. They have no soul,” Crawford said. “That was thing we discovered, coming into ‘Puss in Boots,’ where it was, like, there was so much fun that had been mined in the past, but until we drilled down and go, What’s it about? Why are we telling it? Why does the world need this? The more we drill down on that, we start to find this nugget that that is an undeniable thing that is unique because we challenge ourselves first.”

While the filmmakers have said that certain elements of the movie were inspired by anime, they didn’t want to call out any specifically, for fear that it would ruin the surprise of the eventual movie. Mercado did say that they loved how Studio Ghibli movies create a romanticized version of Japan and that they wanted to do the same thing for the Philippines – maintain the reality of the place but in a “beautiful, handcrafted style.” Other touchstones they threw out were “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” plus the coming-of-age classics from John Hughes (the trailer utilizes Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” from “The Breakfast Club”). They also gave a shoutout to bawdy comedies like “The Hangover” and “Superbad.”

In other words: expect the unexpected. And the filmmakers wouldn’t have it any other way. After “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” Crawford and Mercado are ready to upend expectations all over again with “Forgotten Island.”

“Forgotten Island” arrives in theaters on September 25.

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