That sound you hear? That’s me, clomping up the stairs to the angry dome. I’ve been spending a lot of time up there in recent weeks. My head is slowly imploding from the sheer WTFness of everything I am hearing. I’m not certain how much more of this I can take.
Let me try to put this concisely: there is a movie about Troll dolls. It is called Trolls. It is not, unfortunately, a sequel to Troll 2. It is being produced by DreamWorks Animation. And it has a writer and director.
The director? Mike Mitchell, who directed Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo, Shrek Forever After and (shudder) Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked. His single non-cringe-worthy credit? Sky High, which did not suck. So he’s the guy in charge of Trolls.
The writer? Here we fare a little better. Erica Rivinoja has signed on to write the screenplay. She’s an Emmy-award winner as part of her work on South Park, and has worked on Grounded For Life and Up All Night. But her single big screen writing credit is Extreme Movie, which if you happened to see … well, I’m so very sorry.
The DreamWorks Animation Chief Creative Director Bill Damaschke is beyond excited about this pairing, what with Mitchell’s “pedigree in shaping stories with already beloved characters” and Rivinoja’s “amazing sense of comedy.”
Already beloved characters, Bill? Troll dolls, Bill? Are you high, Bill?
No, I’m sorry, there is no way that this is a good idea. Troll dolls might have been a bizarre little fad back in the 90s, what with their total nakedness and wispy colored hair, but in what universe is that the basis for a film? What next? Beanie Babies? A Floam film? Bop-It? Polly Pocket? Where will it end?
Twentieth Century Fox will release Trolls in November 2016, and there’s nothing you can do about it.