Initially developed as an eight-episode collection, the WWI-era journey “Lucy Misplaced” will as an alternative hit the silver display now that Paris-based powerhouse Xilam Animation has retooled the undertaking as a function. “Klaus” alum Olivier Clert has boarded as co-writer and director, becoming a member of BAFTA-winning screenwriter Helen Blankman for a seaside household story tailored from “Warfare Horse” writer Michael Morpurgo’s 2014 novel “Hearken to the Moon.”

Xilam has shared this first-look with Selection forward of the reformatted undertaking’s pitch at Cartoon Film in Bordeaux.

Set in 1915 within the Isles of Scilly simply off the Cornish coast, the movie follows a younger lady named Lucy raised by a clan of fishermen she is aware of to not be hers. Nonetheless, she remembers little else about her previous, and because the Nice Warfare rages down on the continent, an opportunity encounter with the mysterious lady her personal age quickly helps Lucy put again the items of her personal life’s story and are available to higher perceive her place on the earth.

The undertaking’s change in scope additionally necessitated a change in model as incoming director Olivier Clert labored with the Xilam group to impart a wider visible grandeur.

“On the finish of the day, a function is concerning the expertise you provide to the viewers,” says Xilam founder and CEO Marc du Pontavice. “It have to be an unlimited expertise as a result of [unlike a series] you may have simply that one time, that one second on display — and that forces a distinct method.”

“We needed to wash this story in shiny gentle, with a mixture of poetic and epic accents and a really pictorial model,” du Pontavice continues. “We took a sure affect from Japanese animation in that sense, as a result of 3D robotically conveys a way of realism whereas 2D rendering can convey fantasy simply by taking part in with gentle.”

Whereas Xilam continues work on TV commissions like “The Doomies” and “Chip ‘N’ Dale: Park Life” for Disney+ and Zack Snyder’s “Twilight of the Gods” for Netflix, the continuing contractions within the streaming market – significantly on the household entrance — have rekindled the French studio’s curiosity in options and grownup animation.

Xilam had a breakout success marrying the 2 with Jeremie Clapin’s Oscar-nominated “I Misplaced My Physique” in 2019, and so, going ahead, the studio plans to launch a brand new function annually, alternating between household and auteur fare.

On the grownup entrance, Xilam has tapped ““I Misplaced My Physique” alums Benjamin Massoubre and Fursy Teyssier for “The Wolf,” a darkish wilderness thriller based mostly on a graphic novel from “Snowpiercer” creator Jean Marc Rochette; the studio is now lining up extra expertise for subsequent options in earlier phases of improvement.

“We’ve been diversifying as a lot as doable,” says du Pontavice. “And proper now meaning increasing into the world of grownup animation — a market that has been rising very a lot these previous few years, and that’s nonetheless very dynamic.”