When Sony Pictures Animation first drafted up plans for The Emoji Movie, the Internet was suitably perplexed. How could an audience expect to care about a host of digital characters that are, by definition, one-note personifications of an emotion, or a symbol, or, you know, poop?
To be fair, similar questions were raised in anticipation of The LEGO Movie and this year’s Trolls, and Sony has crafted something of a workaround in Gene (T.J. Miller), a symbol whose ability to express more than one emotion renders him the outcast of Textopolis, a bustling digital utopia in which much of Anthony Leondis’ animation is set to take place. Think Zootopia, only overrun by sprightly pixels as opposed to an entire animal kingdom. And so, what follows is an “app-venture” like no other, after Gene is left with little choice but to buddy up with Hi-5 (James Corden) and a stealthy hacker by the name of Jailbreak (Ilana Glazer) – how very on the nose – to locate the necessary computer code that will fix Miller’s protagonist once and for all.
Co-written alongside Eric Siegel (Men At Work), Leondis’ pic still has many naysayers to win over in time for its August 2017 release, and yesterday’s trailer – one which introduced Steven Wright’s Meh emoji – left much to be desired. Even still, if The Emoji Movie really is to become next summer’s sleeper hit, getting viewers acquainted with the many faces of Sony’s animation is the right place to start, and these new character posters released today are designed to do just that.
The Emoji Movie will take a deep dive into the world beyond your smartphone screen on August 4, 2017.
The Emoji Movie unlocks the never-before-seen secret world inside your smartphone. Hidden within the messaging app is Textopolis, a bustling city where all your favorite emojis live, hoping to be selected by the phone’s user. In this world, each emoji has only one facial expression – except for Gene (T.J. Miller), an exuberant emoji who was born without a filter and is bursting with multiple expressions.
Determined to become “normal” like the other emojis, Gene enlists the help of his handy best friend Hi-5 (James Corden) and the notorious code breaker emoji Jailbreak (Ilana Glazer). Together, they embark on an epic “app-venture” through the apps on the phone, each its own wild and fun world, to find the Code that will fix Gene. But when a greater danger threatens the phone, the fate of all emojis depends on these three unlikely friends who must save their world before it’s deleted forever.