It has been known for some time that both Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment were cooking up an untitled animation for a late 2016 release, and today the studios have pulled back the curtain to reveal Sing, Garth Jennings’ all-new musical comedy on course for a release next December.
Written and directed by Jennings, the feature has already assembled quite the voice cast to bring its animal characters to life, swinging open the doors of the voice booth to Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, Scarlett Johansson, John C. Reilly, Taron Egerton and Tori Kelly. At the heart of the film, though, is McConaughey’s Buster Moon, a proud and resilient Koala who looks over his ailing theater business with longing eyes. And so, in the hopes of injecting his business with a new lease of life, the sharp-suited protagonist stages a musical contest in the hope of restoring his establishment to its former glory.
Taking place in a world completely devoid of humans – not unlike Disney Animation’s Zootopia, mind you – Sing has been billed as a fist-pumping tale of nostalgia and the power of music, and on paper Jennings has certainly attracted an ensemble cast to bring his vision to life.
With images of the leading characters included in the gallery above, here’s the official synopsis per Universal:
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.
Sing will swagger into theaters on December 21, 2016. Nick Kroll, Jennifer Saunders, Peter Serafinowicz, Leslie Jones, Jay Pharoah, Nick Offerman, and Beck Bennett also star.
