The life of a popular comedic director is a long and winding road. Take Nicholas Stoller, the talented populist filmmaker behind such gems as Forgetting Sarah Marshal, Get Him to the Greek, and, most importantly, The Five-Year Engagement, who has also co-written the latest Muppets films. When he's not directing some of the very best big-studio comedies of the last two decades, Stoller also pens total, inexcusable dreck like Sex Tape and that miserable Fun with Dick and Jane remake. Now, Stoller is going into full-on animation with Storks, an animated comedy about the fantastical, famed baby delivery service, which he wrote and co-directed alongside Doug Sweetland, the man behind the charming animated short Presto. You can take a gander at the trailer for the animated comedy, featuring an eagle voiced by Kelsey Grammer and absolutely zero storks, right below, with no sign of fellow cast members Andy Samberg, Jordan Peele, and Keegan-Michael Key.
This isn't the first time that a conjurer of distinctly adult comedies has moved into the animated realm. Noah Baumbach, who had an excellent 2015 with While We're Young and Mistress America, one of his very best films to date, famously penned the third Madagascar film, and Wes Anderson turned in arguably the best film of his career when he turned to stop-motion animation to create Fantastic Mr. Fox. In other words, this is a smart move for the director of the giddily crass Neighbors, who has now opened himself up to one of the most lucrative and creatively inclined avenues of modern filmmaking. In theory, Storks could touch on everything from the dangerous ignorance proliferated by lack of mandated sex education to the dated mechanics of age-old businesses in need of an update, but first and foremost, it looks like a decently designed bit of animated fun. We'll have to wait until September 23rd, 2016 to see what exactly Stoller has in plan for his first foray into the animated realm, but anything that gives forum to the man behind The Five-Year Engagement has my undivided attention.
