Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series spotlighting the year’s most talked-about scripts continues with Elemental, the Pixar pic directed by Peter Sohn.
Launching with a world premiere as the closing-night film at May’s Cannes Film Festival, Elemental was penned by John Hoberg & Kat Likkel and Brenda Hseuh, based on a story by the writers and Sohn about a fantastical place called Element City, where Fire-, Water-, Earth- and Air-residents live together.
The plot follows the quick-witted and fiery Ember (Leah Lewis), a new arrival to the city whose friendship with go-with-the-flow Wade (Mamoudou Athie) challenges not only her beliefs about the world they live in, but the person she wants to be.
The idea germinated from Sohn’s own experiences; like Ember, he was a second-generation immigrant whose parents moved from Korea to New York City. That starting point helped to form the film’s themes of fitting in to a new place, the relationships between parents and their children, and the culture clashes that ultimately arise amid all of it.
The voice cast also features Ronnie del Carmen, Shila Ommi, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Catherine
O’Hara, Mason Wertheimer and Joe Pera. Denise Ream produced, with Pete Docter exec producing.
The husband-and-wife writing-producing duo Hoberg and Likkel previously teamed on ABC series including Downward Dog and Galavant along with writing and producing on Black-ish, The Neighbors, Better Off Ted and My Name Is Earl among others.
Hsueh, whose writing credits include How I Me Your Mother and who consulted for Domee Shi, the director of Disney/Pixar’s Turning Red, most recently wrote the animated Ghostbusters movie for Sony.
Elemental opened in June after its Cannes debut to a $29.6 million first weekend, and it has grossed $496.4 million at the global box office to date. It has also played well on Disney+, where it bowed September 13 and earned 26.4 million views in its first five days.
Click below to read the script.
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