As Disney‘s billion-dollar “Zootopia” proved, talking animals are an animated trope that never gets old with audiences, and Illumination Entertainment is doubling down hard on the fact this year. On Friday, “The Secret Life Of Pets” opens nationwide, and before the year is out, the studio will also drop “Sing,” featuring lots of cute creatures belting out a number of hit songs in what promises to be a musical extravaganza.
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Featuring the voices of Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, Scarlett Johansson, John C. Reilly, and Taron Egerton, and directed by Garth Jennings (“Son of Rambow,” “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy”), the movie finds a lot of adorable critters entering a singing competition that’s launched in order to help save a historic theater from being demolished. Here’s the official synopsis:
Set in a world like ours but entirely inhabited by animals, Sing stars Buster Moon (Academy Award® winner Matthew McConaughey), a dapper Koala who presides over a once-grand theater that has fallen on hard times. Buster is an eternal optimist — okay, maybe a bit of a scoundrel — who loves his theater above all and will do anything to preserve it. Now facing the crumbling of his life’s ambition, he has one final chance to restore his fading jewel to its former glory by producing the world’s greatest singing competition.
Five lead contestants emerge: A mouse (Seth MacFarlane) who croons as smoothly as he cons, a timid teenage elephant (Tori Kelly) with an enormous case of stage fright, an overtaxed mother (Academy Award® winner Reese Witherspoon) run ragged tending a litter of 25 piglets, a young gangster gorilla (Taron Egerton) looking to break free of his family’s felonies, and a punk-rock porcupine (Scarlett Johansson) struggling to shed her arrogant boyfriend and go solo. Each animal arrives under Buster’s marquee believing that this is their shot to change the course of their life.
“Sing” opens on December 21st.