Oscar and Tony Award nominee Anna Kendrick has joined the cast of DreamWorks Animation’s upcoming feature film “Trolls,” TheWrap has learned.
Mike Mitchell will direct the musical comedy, while his “Shrek Forever After” collaborator Gina Shay will produce. 20th Century Fox will release “Trolls” on Nov. 4, 2016.
Kendrick will lend her “Pitch Perfect” pipes to the role of Poppy, the relentlessly upbeat princess at the center of “Trolls,” a fun-filled adventure that will reveal the story behind the beloved, colorful nature of the Trolls’ trademark, gravity-defying hair.
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“Anna has proven herself to be a brilliant actress with an amazing singing voice. She’ll inject Poppy with the exact mix of spirit, sass and song that will no doubt give a whole new life to the iconic Troll dolls,” said Mitchell.
Continuing to this day, the Troll doll phenomenon was born in 1959 when Danish fisherman and woodcutter Thomas Dam, too poor to afford a Christmas present for his young daughter Lajla, carved a doll for her based on the legendary Scandinavian troll. This modern-day Geppetto couldn’t have imagined that the Troll dolls would soon become one of the biggest toy crazes of the 1960s.
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The Trolls experienced a resurgence in the 1990s and their uniquely endearing faces and shocks of colorful hair continue to capture the hearts and imaginations of fans around the world.
Kendrick, who will soon be seen as Cinderella in Disney’s musical “Into the Woods,” has no less than six indies on the horizon including Joe Swanberg’s “Happy Christmas” and “Digging for Fire,” the Sundance movies “Life After Beth” and “The Voices,” plus Richard LaGravenese‘s “The Last 5 Years” and the Jennifer Aniston film “Cake.”
Kendrick is represented by CAA and attorney Todd Rubenstein.