ANNECY '21: Netflix Spills On 'Inside Job', 'Human Resources' and 'The House'
This week sees this year's edition of The Annecy Animation Festival, the world's leading animation event. Due to the current state of things this year's iteration is a hybrid online and in-person event. Limited in-person events such as open-air screenings are taking place within the city, while an online service is being offered to those unable to attend. Annecy always guarantees a raft of new animation news and announcements, and your pals here at AFA will be helping you keep up.
Netflix could reasonably claim to now be one of the world's biggest producers of animation. Despite having only just teased a ton of upcoming animated projects at their own dedicated Geeked Week there is still more to come from their presence at Annecy.
Turning the spotlight first on adult animation, Netflix offers us our first look at Inside Job from Shion Takeuchi, former Pixar animator and writer on series such as Gravity Falls, Regular Show and Disenchantment. Inside Job is the first series produced as part of Takeuchi's overall deal with Netflix It will also be the first adult animation to be produced in-house at Netflix Animation Studios in Los Angeles. Takeuchi will be the showrunner, while Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch (who also has an overall deal with the company) is executive producer.
Netflix describes the show:
Inside Job is an adult animated comedy about the shadow government - and the dysfunctional team whose daily grind is committing the world’s conspiracies. From convoluted coverups to secret societies to masked orgy etiquette, navigating office culture at Cognito Inc. can be tricky, especially for anti-social tech genius Reagan Ridley. Even in a workplace filled with reptilian shapeshifters and psychic mushrooms, she’s seen as the odd one out for believing the world could be a better place. Reagan thinks she can make a difference, if only she could manage her unhinged, manifesto-writing father and her irresponsible coworkers, to finally snag the promotion she’s been dreaming about.
The voice cast is also looking pretty stacked with big names. Lizzy Caplan will voice series lead Reagan, Christian Slater will be Rand Ridley- Regan's father and disgraced head of Cognito Inc, Clark Duke will play Brett Hand and Andrew Daly will appear as Cognito's CEO J.R. Scheimpough. Voice-acting legend John DiMaggio will lend his vocal talents to Glenn Dolphman, a half man, half Dolphin. Tisha Campbell and Brett Gelman round out the cast.
More details were also revealed about Human Resources, the spin-off of Netflix's hit adult comedy Big Mouth. Described by Netflix as "even edgier and adult-ier" than the series it spun off from, it comes from the Big Brains behind the original: Kelly Galuska, Nick Kroll, Andrew Goldberg, Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin. The show takes us to the world where Big Mouth's Hormone Monsters come from and introduces us to the other creatures that guide human throughout their lives including Shame Wizards and Depression Kitties. "It quickly becomes clear," Netflix says, " that though the creatures are the protagonists, they have a lot of humanity themselves". The series will star Nick Kroll and Maya Rudolph reprising their Monster roles from the main series, plus newcomers David Thewliss, Aidy Bryant, Brandon Kyle Goodman, Keke Palmer, and Randall Park. Human Resources is being produced by Brutus Pink and Titmouse Inc.
Adult animation of a very different kind is promised by The House, an eccentric darkly comedic stop-motion anthology. The series is being produced by some of the leading names in indie stop-motion animation- BAFTA winner Paloma Baeza, Niki Lindroth von Bahr, Emma de Swaef and Marc Roels. The series is being produced by Nexus Studios and will centre on the eccentric residents of a particular house. Details have been revealed for the three chapters:
Chapter One: Directed by Emma de Swaef & Marc James Roels, and starring Claudie Blakley, Matthew Goode, Mia Goth, Mark Heap, Miranda Richardson, Josh McGuire and Stephanie Cole.
Chapter Two: Directed by Niki Lindroth von Bahr, and voiced by musicians Jarvis Cocker and Dizzee Rascal, and Yvonne Lombard and Sven Wollter.
Chapter Three,: Directed by Paloma Baeza, and featuring the voices of Helena Bonham-Carter, Paul Kaye, and Will Sharpe.
