Sep 9, 2021

"Ron's Gone Wrong" to the world premiere at the London Film Festival, new trailer released

The BFI London Film Festival (LFF) announced today that it will host the world premiere of Ron's Gone Wrong, the British-made animated feature from Disney's 20th Century Studios and Locksmith Animation.

The premiere will take place during the festival's Family Gala on Saturday, October 9, ahead of the film's general U.K. release on October 15. The U.S. release is scheduled for October 22. A new trailer was released this morning to accompany the LFF announcement:

Another notable (previously-announced) animation highlight at LFF this year is the fact that Mamoru Hosoda's Belle will be one of eight films in official competition. Animated features are often excluded from competition line-ups at live-action festivals (for example, Belle premiered out of competition at Cannes) and it's always commendable when film festivals properly recognize animation as film, on an equal footing with its live-action counterparts.

EARLIER ON CARTOON BREW: Produced by London's Locksmith Animation, Ron's Gone Wrong was intended to mark the beginning of a new line of Fox Animation features that would complement its output from Blue Sky Studios. That all changed though after Disney's purchase of 21st Century Fox in 2019. Disney proceeded to dismantle Fox Animation, shut down its subsidiary Blue Sky Studios, and Locksmith's deal with Fox collapsed. Locksmith has since signed a multi-film deal with Warner Bros.

Ron's Gone Wrong, however, was caught up in the corporate turnover, and Disney ended up with the film. It remains to be seen how much effort they'll put into promoting it, but Disney did premiere the trailer this morning on Good Morning America, which airs on the Disney-owned ABC network.

The film is directed by Pixar and Aardman veteran Jean-Philippe Vine and former Aardman executive Sarah Smith. Smith is also a co-founder of Locksmith along with Aardman producer Julie Lockhart and media executive Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch. Smith also co-wrote the script with Peter Baynham (Hotel Transylvania, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Arthur Christmas). Octavio Rodriguez, who is currently head of story on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2, is co-director.

Ron's Gone Wrong features the voices of Zach Galifianakis, Jack Dylan Grazer, Olivia Colman, Ed Helms, Justice Smith, Rob Delaney, Kylie Cantrall, Ricardo Hurtado, Marcus Scribner, and Thomas Barbusca.