Nov 24, 2015

Lauren Faust no longer directing Medusa with Sony Pictures Animation (exclusive)

Last weekend at the CTN Animation Expo, Lauren Faust revealed publicly that she was no longer working at Sony Pictures Animation on the feature film project Medusa.

Announced in summer 2014, Medusa was to have been the theatrical directorial debut of Faust, a 20-year industry veteran who gained widespread acclaim for her 2010 reboot of the My Little Pony franchise.

“I very much enjoyed my time at Sony Pictures Animation and was extremely excited about the progress our amazing team was making on Medusa,” Faust told Cartoon Brew today. “But, as it happens at so many studios with so many projects, we ultimately ran into creative differences on the direction of the project. I do not know if Medusa has been shelved, but I am no longer working on it or at Sony.”

According to internal sources at Sony familiar with the project, Medusa is still in active development, and the original producer, Michelle Raimo Kouyate, is still attached to the project. “[SPA] president Kristine Belson is championing the project and currently looking to bring in a new director,” sources tell Cartoon Brew.

Medusa, a re-imagining of Greek mythology, was picked up from an original pitch by Todd Alcott and Holly Golden, and has been described by the studio as “a clever, heartfelt animated comedy about a girl who's having the ultimate bad hair day.”

Here is a promotional interview made by Sony Pictures Animation last year when Faust was directing the project: