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HOLLYWOOD (AP) – Talking animal movies do not, on the whole, have the best reputation. Yes, there is \u201cBabe,\u201d but \u201cBabe\u201d is the exception. Most are pretty bad, whether it\u2019s the uncanny effects, the shoddy storytelling or some horrifying combination of the two.<\/p>\n
Audiences have earned the right to be skeptical when something like \u201cThe Sheep Detectives\u201d comes along \u2014 everyone involved was too. And yet this family-friendly \u201cKnives Out\u201d with a murder mystery at the center, a starry ensemble including Hugh Jackman, Emma Thompson and Nicholas Braun, as well as the voices of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Regina Hall and Patrick Stewart as yes, talking sheep, has caught more than a few off guard for its quirky humor, its sincerity and its unexpected depth.<\/p>\n
Chris O\u2019Dowd, who voices Mopple, \u201cthe most patient sheep,\u201d noted: \u201cYou don\u2019t get a lot of projects that are from the director of \u2018Minions\u2019 and the writer of \u2018Chernobyl.\u2019 It\u2019s an unusual combination.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the film, in theaters Friday, Jackman plays George, a kind, but isolated shepherd in the English countryside who reads his animals murder mysteries at night. Unbeknownst to him, not only do they understand the words, they debate the stories among themselves. So when George dies under mysterious circumstances, the flock take what they\u2019ve learned to try to help the dimwitted local police officer (Braun) solve the case, language barriers and all.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we know from watching this movie now with audiences over and over and over is that people are repeatedly delighted and surprised at how much more there is going on here than just silly sheep doing something silly,\u201d screenwriter Craig Mazin said. \u201cThere are some really beautiful moments and themes and things that parents can talk about with their kids \u2026 and, most importantly, it is legitimately a movie that is meant for everyone.\u201d The story of how \u201cThe Sheep Detectives\u201d got made goes back almost 20 years, when veteran producer Lindsay Doran (\u201cSense and Sensibility\u201d) told Mazin about Leonie Swann\u2019s novel \u201cThree Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story.\u201d He was expecting something cute, goofy and silly, but found himself enchanted by how smart, moving and philosophical it was.<\/p>\n It would take nearly a decade to secure the rights, and almost another to get the thing made, and made well thanks to studio executive Courtenay Valenti who, Mazin said, rescued it from rotting on a pile of scripts. Along the way they would find themselves emboldened by the caliber of talent who wanted to be part of it as well.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody involved was all on the same page of aiming as high as we could and sticking to our guns when it came to quality,\u201d Mazin said. \u201cPhil Lord and Chris Miller came on as producers as well, and their entire career has been about taking things that other people might not make good and making them good.\u201d<\/p>\n Molly Gordon, whose character becomes a primary suspect when she mysteriously shows up in town the night of the murder, had the same reservations as many.<\/p>\n \u201cThe script was sent to my agent, and he emailed me, like, \u2018This is really profound\u2019 and I was like \u2018How could this be profound?\u2019 Like, I just, like, the sheep movie?\u201d Gordon said. \u201cAnd then within 10 minutes of reading it, I was like, this is one of the best scripts I\u2019ve ever read.\u201d Mazin\u2019s own kids grew up while \u201cThe Sheep Detectives\u201d was getting made. But he still invited his 21-year-old daughter to watch it with him and his wife a few months back. She\u2019s proud of her dad for his career, but, he said, also wouldn\u2019t hesitate to call something of his \u201cmid.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the film ended, they were both just sort of a sobbing, happy mess,\u201d he said. \u201cMy daughter, who doesn\u2019t cut me any slack at all, AT ALL \u2026 Was like, \u2018That is such a good movie.\u2019 I thought, \u2018OK\u2019 \u2026 if your kids are older, it still works.\u201d<\/p>\n The movie is coming into a fairly healthy theatrical marketplace, where PG-rated movies are often outperforming PG-13 movies and where non-franchise movies with the right buzz have been finding their audience, including another Amazon MGM release, \u201cProject Hail Mary.\u201d Mazin, a veteran screenwriter who also co-hosts the popular \u201cScriptnotes\u201d podcast, doesn\u2019t often hype his own projects like this. Usually he thinks they should speak for themselves.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody needs the guy who wrote something to say, no, it\u2019s really good. This is the first time in my career that I\u2019m like, but actually, no guys. I love this,\u201d he said. \u201cSeeing this movie is a purely positive experience.\u201d<\/p>\n And it needs a little bit of hype. \u201cThe Sheep Detectives\u201d is currently tracking for a muted box office debut, in the $10 million to $15 million range. But it\u2019s also a movie that has been underestimated at nearly every step.<\/p>\n \u201cLow expectations are, you know, sometimes a gift,\u201d Mazin laughed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" HOLLYWOOD (AP) – Talking animal movies do not, on the whole, have the best reputation. Yes, there is \u201cBabe,\u201d but \u201cBabe\u201d is the exception. Most are pretty bad, whether it\u2019s the uncanny effects, the shoddy storytelling or some horrifying combination of the two. Audiences have earned the right to be skeptical when something like \u201cThe … Continue reading \u2018The Sheep Detectives\u2019 is the starry, family-friendly whodunnit you didn\u2019t know you needed<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":1504414,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1451],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1504413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abc-entertainment-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-06 05:06:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1504413"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1504415,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504413\/revisions\/1504415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1504414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1504413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1504413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1504413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAiming high with \u2018The Sheep Detectives\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nThe real audience test<\/strong><\/p>\n