That Christmas, the upcoming Netflix animation co-written and produced by Richard Curtis has revealed its stacked voice cast. More on that below.
March is coming to an end soon, so it feels only appropriate to start talking about Christmas, right? Or, at least, Christmas films.
One of this year’s buzziest titles has to be That Christmas, which we reported was in the works back in 2022. The project has since found a home at Netflix and is expected to land during the festive season this year.
The film will be directed by Simon Otto and the script is penned by Peter Souter and Richard Curtis. That seems logical, considering the film is based on Curtis’ trilogy of children’s books. Curtis is also on board as an executive producer.
As announced today by Netflix, the voice cast for the film includes Brian Cox as Santa Claus himself and he will be joined by Fiona Shaw, Jodie Whittaker and Bill Nighy. John Powell is in charge of music, so the film will sound rather lovely, we suspect.
Not much is known about the plot of That Christmas, but the press release does say that the film follows “a series of entwined tales about family and friends, love and loneliness, and Santa Claus making a big mistake, not to mention an enormous number of turkeys!”
This will be Curtis’ first foray into animation and he seems pretty excited about it: “This has been the most amazing adventure, my first animated film. It’s been especially exciting to see the whole world I imagined come to life beyond my wildest dreams – and populated by a dream bunch of actors, their wonderful voices turned into such rich and funny characters.”
Otto seems also delighted to be directing the film: “Becoming an animator had been on my Christmas wish list ever since I was a child and watching animated movies was one of the biggest Christmas traditions in my family. But never could I have imagined that one day I would get the chance to direct a Christmas film written by the one-and-only Richard Curtis and collaborate with some of the most iconic voice talents. Watching this cast bring life to these heart-warmingly funny tales and infuse them with the magic of animation is truly a dream come true. I hope That Christmas becomes a cherished tradition for audiences worldwide.”
Netflix hasn’t given a release date for the film yet, but we’re going to boldly assume the film will drop in December. More on That Christmas as we hear it.
