Aard­man and Net­flix are mak­ing an ani­mat­ed Christ­mas musical

While we’re all still work­ing our way through the del­uge of new Christ­mas­time con­tent sloughed onto Netflix’s con­tent library like loos­ened earth in a mud­slide, the stream­ing giant has already begun teas­ing us with next year’s sea­son­al offer­ings. Pro­duc­tion has com­menced on their 2021 slate, and the first one on the books comes with an impres­sive pedigree.

Today Net­flix announced that the wheels have start­ed turn­ing on Robin Robin, the next fea­ture project from the stop-motion wiz­ards at UK ani­ma­tion house Aard­man. The film will be their first prop­er musi­cal, and in keep­ing with its pro­ject­ed release date of late next year, it will also be infused with a healthy dosage of Yule­tide cheer.

The film tracks the mat­u­ra­tion of Robin (voiced by up-and-com­ing young actress Bronte Carmichael), a bird with a mixed-up sense of iden­ti­ty due to her hav­ing been raised by a fam­i­ly of mice since birth. Robin leaves home and embarks upon a jour­ney of inter­species self-dis­cov­ery, accom­pa­nied by a item-hoard­ing Mag­pie (to be voiced by Richard E. Grant) and stalked by a preda­to­ry Cat (voice of Gillian Ander­son) between pro­duc­tion numbers.

His odyssey of the soul most­ly revolves around his efforts to pro­cure a deli­cious sand­wich, a sug­ges­tion that the dri­ly absur­dist sense of humor Aard­man has made their trade­mark will not be absent from their first col­lab­o­ra­tion with Net­flix. (Their sec­ond, a mer­ci­ful­ly Mel Gib­son-free sequel to Chick­en Run, was put on the sched­ule ear­li­er this summer.)

The folks at Net­flix also released the pro­mo­tion­al image repro­duced below, a splashy exte­ri­or shot of the hunk-o-junk that Robin and her mousy fam­i­ly call home. The ani­ma­tion medi­um is unique­ly suit­ed to telling sto­ries of tiny scale like this one, where the camera’s POV is no big­ger than a bicy­cle tire – on the con­cep­tu­al lev­el, the film’s off to a great start.