Storks Directors Reveal Animated Film's Unique Tone

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‘Storks’ Directors and Producers Reveal How the Tone Is Like a Christopher Guest Movie

By Matt Goldberg

Published Apr 16, 2016

They also talk about how the film came together and how it utilizes improv.

Steve Weintraub was recently at CinemaCon, which is where studios go to promote their upcoming films to movie theater owners. This means bringing out the talent to talk about the movies, so we got the chance to talk to Storks directors Nicholas Stoller and Doug Sweetland and producer Brad Lewis about the upcoming animated comedy. For those that don’t know, the film takes place in a world where storks used to direct babies, but now have been relegated to delivering packages for a giant online company. The storks’ lives are thrown into upheaval when they have to deliver a baby again.

During the red carpet for the Warner Bros. presentation, Stoller, Sweetland, and Lewis talked about how the project came together, the work they put into nailing the story in pre-production, integrating improv into the filmmaking, the unusual process of having multiple people in the recording booth during sessions (usually it’s just one actor at a time), and how the level of spontaneity gives the movie a tone that’s similar to a Christopher Guest film (Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show).

storks-kelsey-grammer — Image via Warner Bros.

The time index of the interview is below. Storks opens September 23rd, and features the voices of Andy Samberg, Keegan-Michael Key, and Kelsey Grammer.

0:46 – How the project came together and what it’s about.
2:26 – The amount of work that went into nailing the story during pre-production. They also talk about how they integrated improv into the filmmaking.
4:48 – The unusual process of recording multiple people in the booth and how the spontaneity makes it like a Christopher Guest movie.

Here's the official synopsis for Storks:

Storks deliver babies…or at least they used to. Now they deliver packages for global internet giant Cornerstore. Junior, the company’s top delivery stork, is about to be promoted when he accidentally activates the Baby Making Machine, producing an adorable and wholly unauthorized baby girl. Desperate to deliver this bundle of trouble before the boss gets wise, Junior and his friend Tulip, the only human on Stork Mountain, race to make their first-ever baby drop – in a wild and revealing journey that could make more than one family whole and restore the storks’ true mission in the world.