WATCH: Netflix Releases ‘Duck Duck Goose’ Trailer

Original Force’s animated comedy, directed by Chris Jenkins and produced by Sandra Rabins and Penny Finkelman Cox, will finally reach a U.S. audience.

Netflix has released a new trailer for Chinese production powerhouse Original Force’s animated comedy, Duck Duck Goose, setting the film’s U.S. premiere for July 20.  Directed by Chris Jenkins (Home, Open Season), the film was written by Jenkins along with Rob Muir, Scott Atkinson and Tegan West. The film was produced by former DreamWorks and Sony Pictures Animation execs Sandra Rabins (Shrek, Antz) and Penny Finkelman Cox (Shrek, Antz), working out of the Culver City development studio they opened with Original Force in 2015.

Duck Duck Goose, which features the voices of Jim Gaffigan, Zendaya and Lance Lim, follows a “high-flying bachelor goose named Peng” (voiced by Gaffigan), who is injured in flight and finds himself saddled with two adorably hilarious and demanding ducklings (voiced by Zendaya and Lim) on a long journey south that turns the scrappy threesome into a family. The film also features the voices of Greg Proops, Natasha Leggero, Reggie Watts, Diedrich Bader, Jennifer Grey, Rick Overton, Craig Ferguson, Stephen Fry and the legendary Carl Reiner.

With the backing of Tencent Holdings, Original Force moved boldly into Hollywood, launching their new motion picture division and putting three animated feature films into production. Rabins and Finkelman Cox served as co-presidents of Original Force Animation, which set an aggressive goal of producing at least one major CG feature film every 18 months. 

GFM Films signed on to handle international distribution back in March 2017. Open Road Films, the AMC Theatres and Regal Entertainment-backed studio, acquired the U.S. theatrical rights two months later, originally setting the film’s release for April 20, 2018. Open Road was then acquired by Tang Media Partners in August 2017, ultimately becoming Global Road Entertainment.

That same month, on August 25th, Rabins and Finkelman Cox left Original Force, and the film’s U.S. release date was thrown into doubt, as was the studio's animated feature development slate.  To date, in a nine-country international release starting earlier this year, including China, Duck Duck Goose has a reported box office take of $13.1 million.

Source: Netflix and The Numbers

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Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.