'Moominvalley' Reveals All-Star Cast and Gorgeous New Concept Art
Earlier this year a crowdfunding campaign was launched for a brand new series based on the beloved Moomin characters. The campaign beat its target by 27%, raising an impressive total of $253,230. Now, some months later we have a host of new details of the upcoming series, which is now officially going by the title of Moominvalley.
The popular Moomin characters were created by Tove Jansson in 1945, starring in a series of books and comic strips before being adapted into several successful animated series and films, most recently Moomins On The Riveria.
The new show, which is set to debut in 2019 with two series of 13 episodes, will be made using a hybrid 2D/3D animation style "where characters are rendered in 3D in an environment with some 2D illustrative or painterly elements". It is being produced by Gutsy Animation, Finland's Yle Drama and Moomin Characters- the company founded by original creator Jansson and her brother Lars to manage the Moomin brand. It will be directed by Aardman veteran Steve Box and written by the Emmy winning writing team Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler. The music will be written by Classical violinist Pekka Kuusisto and percussionist Samuli Kosminen.
Thr producers have now revealed an impressive voice cast for the English language version of the series. Taron Egerton (Kingsman, Sing) will voice Moomintroll, Akiya Henry (Bing, Little Britain) will play Snorkmaiden and Matt Berry (The IT Crowd, Toast Of London) and Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) will play Moominpappa and Moominmamma.
Warwick Davis (Star Wars, Harry Potter) will voice Sniff, writer Will Self will play The Muskrat, Richard Ayoade (The IT Crowd) will be The Ghost, and last but not least Kate Winslet will appear as Mrs Fillyjonk.
The remaining cast (including the key roles of Snufkin and Little My) will be revealed at a later date.
We've also been sent over some utterly gorgeous new concept art, which you can check out below (click for bigger).
The Moomin characters are beloved around the world and have been brought to life through animation before with great success and considerable charm. Even so, everything we've seen so far suggests that there is every chance that this is going to be the best one yet. Sophia Jansson (Tove's niece and creative director of Moomin Characters) says "Tove gave the inhabitants of Moominvalley the values of tolerance, love, respect, friendship and bravery – which are needed in today's world more than ever. We’re very excited to have a wonderful cast and team who share these values bringing Moomin to life in a new way for fans young and old.” We agree and can't wait to see more!
