Alicia Vikander and Gillian Anderson Among the Excellent Cast for Animated FantasyThe Turning Door

Writer-director Nicholas Ashe Bateman, who worked for years in visual effects, recently made his directorial debut with 2020’s The Wanting Mare, the trailer for which is fascinating and eerie. According to Movie Maker magazine, he and his team made that film “using little more than blue screen, a Sony a7S II, and After Effects.” The film was shot “almost exclusively against blue screen in a warehouse in New Jersey,” and Bateman raised the money to shoot part of it via Indiegogo.

It’s a scrappy beginning—but with his next film, Bateman is leveling up. Variety reports that a power quintet of stars will be voicing roles in his next film, the animated fantasy The Turning Door. Alicia Vikander (Tomb Raider), Jamie Dornan (Belfast), Jodie Turner-Smith (Tron: Ares), Bill Nighy (Love Actually), and Gillian Anderson (Sex Education, pictured above) have as-yet-unannounced roles in the film, which sounds pretty fantastic. Here’s the synopsis, via Variety:

The Turning Door follows a young girl called Ariadlyn, who is sent to bed as a party rages downstairs. Escaping her bedtime, she slips into her parents’ room, where she discovers an ornate wooden box, opening a door to a magical world called The Turning. To find her way back home and save her parents—now frozen in the real world—Ariadlyn must seek out a sorceress and her crystal vial. Along the way, she will encounter giants, whales, armies, shapeshifters and acrobatic monkeys as she discovers what it means to grow up.

Animated movies take some time to create, so it might be years before we get to see this one—but it’s in production now. In the meantime, it’s definitely time to finally watch The Wanting Mare, which is available on a handful of streaming platforms, including Prime and Roku.
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