“Sometimes, to survive, we must become more than we were programmed to be.”
That’s the only line said in its first trailer, but already, there’s a lot to suggest that DreamWorks’s The Wild Robot will be a faithful adaptation of the eponymous book by Peter Brown. Brown’s novel was a quiet, serene, and character-driven story about a robot learning about family and friendship from the animals she lives with, and the trailer seems to nail that tone perfectly, with its beautiful animation (seemingly inspired by the illustrations and cover of the book) and music choice of a cover of Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World.
Since its release, the trailer has been praised by many. Reactor Magazine wrote that the trailer “has the audacity to make you cry.” ScreenRant commented that it “certainly teases that The Wild Robot will be bright, bold, and full of emotion.” Creative Bloq called the trailer “a masterclass in stunning animation.” Given how the novel sold over 2 million copies worldwide, it’s no mystery why DreamWorks would want to give its adaptation the best treatment possible, especially since the studio has had several book-to-film adaptations.
DreamWorks Animation has released seven films based on children’s books so far. Shrek, the film that put them on the map, was even based on the picture book of the same name by William Steig. It’s noteworthy that the studio still frequently takes inspiration from children’s literature, but the problem is, very few of these movies could be considered faithful adaptations.
Shrek and How To Train Your Dragon may maintain the titles of their books, but they also add new characters and greatly change plot lines. It’s to the point where the upcoming live-action How to Train Your Dragon film is actually an adaptation of the animated film and not the novel.
Some DreamWorks adaptations don’t even keep the title of their book. In addition to the numerous changes to the plot and tone, Home also has a title so entirely separate from its book, The True Meaning of Smekday. The title change was originally Happy Smekday!, but possibly due to marketing reasons, the movie was released as Home and the word Smekday is never said by a single character in the film. Rise of the Guardians is based on The Guardians of Childhood, which is closer, but still far enough to be a significant title change.
Studios outside of DreamWorks have done the same thing with their few book adaptations, too: Disney turned A Day with Wilbur Robinson to Meet the Robinsons, Blue Sky turned The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs to Epic, and Laika turned Here Be Monsters to The Boxtrolls. It’s as if these studios want these films to be as far removed from the books as possible, despite taking inspiration from them.
“Adaptation” feels like a stretch for many of these animated films. That’s not a comment on their quality as some of them are quite good, and some are even great. However, it does show that the animation studios of the last 23 years see these books less as true source materials and more as inspiration for their own narratives, ones that barely resemble the book at all.
Admittedly, an important reason why is probably that adapting these books could be cheaper than licensing a brand-new script, and in the interest of balance, it’s hard to be fully faithful to children’s books when they’re usually shorter and simpler than books for older readers. Middle grade novels are the obvious exception here (if anything, their lengths feel just right for a film adaptation) but for shorter narratives, the films for The Little Prince and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret are shining examples of how to adapt these stories right.
Both films kept the narrative of the book intact while adding new stories on top that mirror the original narrative’s lessons, but most importantly, their tones were still faithful to the source material. I’d like to encourage Hollywood to take a chance more on quieter and more contemplative and character-driven animated movies. These films don’t need to be constant joke-a-thons, nor do they need to be extremely fast-paced and regularly exciting. We can, and should, have a good mix of both.
For some reason, though, picture book adaptations were significantly popular in the 2000s. Nine were released theatrically during this decade, six of them animated. Regardless of faithfulness, a lot of them kept the exact title of their source material, too, like The Polar Express and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. This might be because a Scholastic survey revealed many people lose interest in reading before the age of ten, so these titles would be recognizable not just to bookworms, but also to kids and adults who no longer read for pleasure.
However, just because someone recognizes the title of a film, doesn’t mean they’ll watch it. The Polar Express was a box office flop when it was released, only grossing $243 million against a budget of $170 million plus another estimated $170 million for marketing and distribution. (It was released in IMAX too.) The Ant Bully only made $55 million against a budget of $50 million and Curious George $69 million against a budget of $50 million.
These disappointing results are most likely why the 2010s and onwards only saw three theatrical picture book adaptations and two of these were based on Dr. Seuss’s properties, The Lorax and The Grinch, as Dr. Seuss is the most popular picture book author of all time.
On the topic of money, something else to consider is that many non-picture book adaptations are based on books that aren’t popular. Disney still does fairy tales because everyone knows The Frog Prince and Rapunzel, but books like The True Meaning of Smekday and Here Be Monsters never had any brand recognition to begin with — at least, not strong ones.
That raises another question: why aren’t more animation studios banking on the brand recognition of popular children’s books? After all, teen and adult films do it all the time. There are many beloved modern children’s novels out there that deserve a faithful animated film adaptation, and the animated medium fits these stories so well as both mediums rely heavily on imagination and exaggeration, and have fantastical elements like talking animals, strange magic, and anthropomorphic robots.
The Wild Robot is the first book in a trilogy, so if the film does well, DreamWorks will likely want to adapt the rest of the series as well. This could mean the start of more faithful animated adaptations of children’s literature, especially since animated films of Redwall, This Was Our Pact, Wildwood, and Dog Man are currently in production.
That is, as long as I’m not wrong about the film being a faithful adaptation of the Peter Brown novel. However, the trailer’s matching art style, tone, and even title typography to the book give me strong hope that Brown’s breathtaking narrative is getting the faithful adaptation it deserves.
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