“The Inventor,” a new stop-motion animated feature starring Daisy Ridley and Marion Cotillard, has secured U.S. theatrical distribution at Blue Fox Entertainment.
Having premiered in competition at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June, the feature is about Leonardo da Vinci and marks the directorial debut of Pixar vet Jim Capobianco. “The Inventor” will be released nationwide on Aug. 25.
Capobianco is a longtime animation stalwart who worked on movies during the so-called Disney Renaissance before moving to Pixar, where he wrote on “Ratatouille” (and was subsequently nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar) and worked in the story department for “Inside Out,” “Coco” and “Finding Dory.” Capobianco wrote “The Inventor” and directed alongside Pierre-Luc Granjon.
In addition to Ridley and Cotillard, the stop-motion film features the voices of Stephen Fry, Gauthier Battoue and Matt Berry, with the story following da Vinci as “he leaves Italy to join the French court where he can freely experiment, invent flying contraptions and incredible machines,” per the official synopsis. Ridley voices Princess Marguerite, who joins him on his quest to answer the question: “What is the meaning of life?”
Capobianco, who most recently worked on the animated sequence in “Mary Poppins Returns,” has long been fascinated by da Vinci as a character, as evidenced in his 2009 short film, “Leonardo.”
“I am thrilled that Blue Fox has leaped forward to bring ‘The Inventor’ to theaters where audiences can experience Leonardo da Vinci’s adventures on the big screen,” Capobianco said in a statement. “His legacy proves that through our actions, we can inspire those around us — girls, boys, women, and men — to be curious, to challenge the status quo, to think in new ways and to be inventors in their own lives.”
The producers of “The Inventor” are Robert Rippberger of SIE Films, Capobianco, Adrian Politowski and Martin Metz. The musical score is by Alex Mandel (who worked on “Brave” at Pixar). Marijke Van Kets, meanwhile, is attached as director of photography with Samuel Ribeyron as production designer and Nicolas Flory as editor.
