George Lucas excited for "Strange Magic"

26 Jan – From the mind of George Lucas, comes an animated film entitled "Strange Magic". The director, well-known for his "Star Wars" film series, dropped by Singapore last week to promote aforementioned animated film.

The film was mostly made in Lucasfilm Animation Singapore, Channel NewsAsia reports, and Lucas was singing praises for the team that made the animated musical possible, ""Strange Magic" was assembled right here in Singapore. And I think the movie is brilliant. It shows the great talent you guys have here."

Lucasfilm Animation Singapore's team is made up of about 150 people at its peak. They took charge of the film's story, layout, character and art design as well as the animation, compositing, modelling, lighting and rendering of the 3D-animated film.

Lucas is excited for the film, saying, "The only other time I've had this experience was with "Indiana Jones And The Raiders of The Lost Ark."

The film's storyline is inspired by "A Midsummer Night's Dream". It, however, features popular songs from the past six decades as accompaniment to the musical film. Lucas, who was also the film's executive producer, revealed that he made the film for 12-year-old girls, remembering how his daughters used to love when he read "Wizard of Oz" to them.

It is a good thing the 70-year-old is not hoping for much for the film, because in spite of the stellar voice-cast lineup which include Alan Cumming, Evan Rachel Wood, Kristin Chenoweth and Maya Rudolph, the movie did not make a magical opening in North American cinemas last weekend, managing to gross only USD5.5 million. Reception in Singaporean cinemas remains to be seen as the movie only opens this week.

"Strange Magic" lands in cinemas on 29 January 2015.