Ah, Dreamworks Animation. You were once the top of the pops — Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon — and now you’ve been shown up by Sony of all companies, to say nothing of your in-house competitor Illumination and their total dominance of children’s non-Disney entertainment options. Maybe it was all of the “Dreamworks face” memes. Maybe it was a couple of non-starter franchise films that were just D.O.A. before they could get that sweet sequel cash. Maybe it went all the way back to Bee Movie. Will Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken help to bring you back to the novel-IP mainstream? It’s anyone’s guess, and you can better inform yourself by watching this goofy trailer that Universal dropped on Tuesday morning.
Peep it:
Here’s a straight-up wall of text for a synopsis:
“Sometimes the hero you are meant to be lies just beneath the surface. This summer, DreamWorks Animation dives into the turbulent waters of high school with a hilarious, heartfelt action comedy about a shy teenager who discovers that she’s part of a legendary royal lineage of mythical sea krakens and that her destiny, in the depths of the oceans, is bigger than she ever dreamed. Sweet, awkward 16-year-old Ruby Gillman (Lana Condor, ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’ franchise) is desperate to fit in at Oceanside High, but she mostly just feels invisible. She’s math-tutoring her skater-boy crush (Jaboukie Young-White, ‘Ralph Breaks the Internet’), who only seems to admire her for her fractals, and she’s prevented from hanging out with the cool kids at the beach because her over-protective supermom (Oscar nominee Toni Collette, ‘Knives Out’), has forbade Ruby from ever getting in the water. But when she breaks her mom’s #1 rule, Ruby will discover that she is a direct descendant of the warrior Kraken queens and is destined to inherit the throne from her commanding grandmother (Academy Award winner Jane Fonda), the Warrior Queen of the Seven Seas. The Kraken are sworn to protect the oceans of the world against the vain, power-hungry mermaids who have been battling with the Kraken for eons. There’s one major, and immediate, problem with that: The school’s beautiful, popular new girl, Chelsea (Emmy winner Annie Murphy, ‘Schitt’s Creek’) just happens to be a mermaid. Ruby will ultimately need to embrace who she is and go big to protect those she loves most.“
Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken hits theaters on June 30. It would be a very silly thing if this movie somehow manages to beat Indiana Jones at the box office, given that they’re opening on the same day, but that’s likely not going to happen.