Patrick Osborne to direct animated fantasy for Netflix
David Farnor | On 28, Nov 2017
Oscar-winning director Patrick Osborne is heading to Netflix for his next project, an animated fantasy adventure.
Osborne is a veteran of the animated industry, previously working at Disney on projects including Bolt, Tangled and Wreck-It Ralph. He was head of animation on the Oscar-nominated short Paper Man, also bagged an Oscar nod for VR short Pearl and took home a statuette for the short film Feast.
While he is currently in production on his first feature – Fox’s Nimona, written by Marc Haines – and is attached to Paramount’s Battling Boy, Osborne has now inked a deal with Netflix for an untitled project.
The film’s plot is under wraps, but [“Deadline reports it as being “in the vein of The Jungle Book and The Wizard of Oz”, following a young boy who goes to a fantasy world in his dreams to escape reality. What we do know is that the script is by Emma Needell, whose first screenplay, The Water Man, was on 2015’s Black List.
The film is coming out of turnaround at Disney, with David Oyelowo attached to star. He will also produce along with Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films, and Bard Dorros, Tariq Merhab and Charlie Scully from Anonymous Content.