What was once a plastic Danish doll is now DreamWorks Animation’s newest movie franchise. Following the surprise hit of their 2016 jukebox musical Trolls, a sequel titled Trolls World Tour is all geared up to perform abroad next year, starting off with the first newly-released trailer.
Trolls World Tour expands on the colourful Troll world, where Poppy (Anna Kendrick) and Branch (Justin Timberlake) discover they are in one of six Troll tribes. Each tribe is set to a specific music genre, including Funk, Country, Techno, Classical, Pop, and Rock. However, Queen Barb (Rachel Bloom) and her father King Thrash (Ozzy Osbourne) of hard-rock royalty want rock music to reign supreme and have all other musical tribes perished. Poppy, Branch, and their friends will team up with the other worlds to put a stop to Barb’s threat and bring harmony to all Trolls.
Along with Kendrick and Timberlake reprise their roles Poppy and Branch respectively, James Corden (Biggie), Caroline Hjelt (Chenille), Aino Jawo (Satin), Ron Funches (Cooper), and Kunal Nayyar (Guy Diamond) also return to voice their respective characters. The new cast of the different musical tribes is stacked with a large list of musicians as described in DreamWorks’ press release:
Cast as members of the different musical tribes is one the largest, and most acclaimed, groups of musical talent ever assembled for an animated film. From the land of Funk are Mary J. Blige, George Clinton and Anderson Paak. Representing Country is Kelly Clarkson as Delta Dawn, with Sam Rockwell as Hickory and Flula Borg as Dickory. J Balvin brings Reggaeton, while Ester Dean adds to the Pop tribe. Anthony Ramos brings the beat in Techno and Jamie Dornan covers smooth jazz. World-renowned conductor and violinist Gustavo Dudamel appears as Trollzart and Charlyne Yi as Pennywhistle from the land of Classical. And Kenan Thompson raps as a hip-hop newborn Troll named Tiny Diamond.
Like with the first movie, Trolls World Tour will feature numerous covers of iconic pop songs, some of which you may easily recognize in the trailer. Additionally, there will be original songs performed by Timberlake as Branch. This is all topped off with an original score by Theodore Shapiro, composer of DreamWorks’ Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie.
Walt Dohrn, the co-director of the first Trolls film, returns to direct the Trolls World Tour and is joined with newcomer co-director David P. Smith (The Mr. Peabody & Sherman Show). Trolls producer Gina Shay also returns to produce the sequel.
The first Trolls movie, released back in October 2016 by 20th Century Fox, was a hit for DreamWorks with $346.8 million in worldwide grosses, an Oscar nomination for Timberlake’s song “Can’t Stop the Feeling!”, and eventually the Netflix series Trolls: The Beat Goes On!. The film’s decent critic reception has primarily pointed out its colourful psychedelic visuals and catchy music covers. With the sequel expanding these aspects greatly with the creative worldbuilding of music genres, this certainly looks to be a worthy follow-up that Trolls fans should easily dig.
Trolls World Tour will begin touring in North American cinemas via DreamWorks’ new owner Universal Pictures on April 17, 2020.
Discussion about this post