Richard Curtis brought a touch of festive magic to the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on a rainy Tuesday, as he unveiled his first animated feature, “That Christmas,” during a Work in Progress session.
“I really adore Christmas. Whenever I’m thinking of stories, that’s the first place my mind goes to,” Curtis shared with an audience of animation professionals and students.
Curtis, known for iconic Christmas films like “Love Actually,” aims to replicate his success in the animation world. His Netflix-backed debut is directed by Simon Otto, known for “How To Train Your Dragon” and “Love, Death & Robots,” and produced by Nicole P. Hearon (“Moana,” “Frozen”) and Adam Tandy (“The Thick of It,” “Detectorists”) for Locksmith Animation.
“It’s the best time of the year,” Curtis said about Christmas. “I love all the questions it brings. Have you been naughty? Have you been nice? Is your family functional? There’s the disastrous family meal, the freezing Christmas swim in the North Sea, and the dreadful walk with people you don’t like.”
Curtis drew inspiration from classic Christmas movies. “It’s a Wonderful Life, I’ve seen it 40 times. I love the Charlie Brown movie. That’s my biggest inspiration for this. There’s also Elf and White Christmas, which I used to watch with my dad every year.”
The screenplay for “That Christmas” is adapted from Curtis’s trilogy of Christmas-themed children’s books: “The Empty Stocking,” “Snow Day,” and “That Christmas.”
“We’ve taken these three books and woven them together to tell one interconnected story,” Otto explained. “We brought Netflix on board with the idea of making a Richard Curtis movie for the family.”
Otto faced the challenge of turning small events from the charming children’s books into a big, sweeping cinematic film. “In animation, we tend to tell stories with a single protagonist, big journeys, and fantastical ideas. I wanted this film to fit into Richard’s canon of movies and live up to them.”
Set in the imaginary seaside town of Wellington-on-Sea, the story unfolds in the run-up to Christmas Day. A monster blizzard hits the region, hampering the return of parents from a social event in the next town and leaving their children to fend for themselves. Meanwhile, Father Christmas, voiced by Brian Cox, is doing his rounds.
“It’s a unique backdrop that will make our audience feel like they’re sitting in the middle of a snow globe,” Otto said.
The blueprint for Wellington is the seaside town in Suffolk, where Curtis has a home. “I’ve had a very cowardly movie career,” Curtis admitted. “I went to America when I was young and set a movie in Boston, then realized I didn’t know anything about it. So, I came home. My first film, ‘The Tall Guy,’ was originally called ‘Camden Town Boy’ because I lived in Camden Town. The next film was ‘Notting Hill’ because I lived in Notting Hill. I’ve just done a film called ‘Yesterday,’ set in Suffolk and the Latitude Festival, because I live in Suffolk and go to the Latitude Festival.”
Otto and his team started creating storyboards and drawing outlines from the books as Curtis was writing the screenplay. “We started drawing, and as the pages came in, we refined them,” Otto said.
Curtis found working on feature animation to be an intriguing process, different from his live-action experiences. “When you’re making real-life movies, it’s all just print, and you don’t see anything until you turn up on the day, and there’s the set. To see what I’ve written in visual terms was so exciting because then you can write jokes into stuff you’re already seeing.”
The voice cast includes A-list actors like Cox, Fiona Shaw, Jodie Whittaker, and Bill Nighy, alongside a host of child actors. Curtis found working with children in the recording studio more rewarding than on a set. “One of the most exciting things was to have real time to work with kids not under pressure. The performances by the kids in this movie are so rich and humane,” he said.
“My experience of working with kids on movie sets is that it’s very scary for them. It’s hard for them to calm down. I’ve been lucky. The boy in ‘Love Actually’ was amazing, but there have been a couple of other films where we had to cut the kids in the end.”
“That Christmas” is set to launch on Netflix in December 2024.
