Genndy Tartakovsky posts animation test to "change studio's mind" about his medieval mech suit movie
Apparently hoping to overwhelm Sony with a "groundswell" of excitement, Tartakovsky released the Black Knight footage to his Instagram.
Screenshot: Instagram
Animator Genndy Tartakovsky has bounced back and forth for years between more mainstream, studio-friendly projects (most notably the Hotel Transylvania films, but also his well-loved work on Star Wars) and more out-there projects. (Including his most recent film, the raunchy, not-especially-well-received Netflix dogs comedy Fixed.) Now the Dexter’s Lab creator is pushing even further afield: Releasing test footage of a film he’s been working on for the last six years, Black Knight, in an effort to “get a ground swell of excitement that would change the studio’s mind” after his corporate partners declined to move forward on the picture. (Tartakovsky doesn’t specify the studio in his social media post, but Black Knight was originally set up at Sony Pictures Animation back in 2018, according to Deadline.)
Writing “Well, this might get me in trouble…” Tartakovsky posted the 40-second animation clip to his Instagram on Friday. The video shows a gigantic knight—apparently a medieval mech suit being operated with ropes and pullies, although none of that (probably pretty cool to see!) stuff is in the animation test—fighting a much smaller ninja-style opponent. We’ll concede that it is kind of neat-looking, even if the net effect isn’t maybe as revolutionary as Tartakovsky was hoping for it to be; it doesn’t look all that different from some of the other stuff Sony has put out in recent years, or even projects like Netflix’s Arcane.
Tartakovsky has used test footage to try to build enthusiasm for a project before; notably, he and Sony put out an early animation offering for a planned Popeye movie back in 2014 that never wound up getting made. It’s not clear how well allegedly going behind the studio’s back to build up enthusiasm for Black Knight will work out for him, although it’s worth noting that Tartakovsky has made Sony a lot of money over the years with the Transylvania movies, which presumably buys at least some amount of goodwill.
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