{"id":252818,"date":"2025-10-31T08:37:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T08:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/252818\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T08:37:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T08:37:11","slug":"klaus-director-sergio-pablos-provides-optimistic-ember-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/252818\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Klaus’ Director Sergio Pablos Provides Optimistic ‘Ember’ Update"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Oscar-nominated Klaus director and Despicable Me creator Sergio Pablos took the stage at Cartoon Springboard in Madrid this week to offer an enlightening update on Ember, a long-shelved passion project that Netflix canceled<\/a> in 2022, along with several other high-profile projects, during a major management shift.<\/p>\n

Pablos also gave Cartoon Brew exclusive access to a previously unreleased image from the project. We wish we could show you more, but everything shown in the room is still highly confidential.<\/p>\n

\"Ember\"<\/a>\u2018Ember\u2019 \u2013 Courtesy of SPA Studios<\/p>\n

Pablos made clear that Ember is anything but dead. \u201cWe\u2019ve spent the last two years continuing to work on it whenever possible,\u201d he told the crowd. \u201cWe\u2019re now at the brink of hopefully making a serious play to bring it back into production.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the presentation, Pablos revealed an astonishingly polished project: lush environments, SPA Studios\u2019 brilliant 2D lighting techniques, and emotional story beats that show off just how far into development the film was when Netflix doused the spark of the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much work that has gone into this thing already,\u201d Pablos said. \u201cI just wanted to bring you a sneak peek and get a sense of your reaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Prehistoric Flame<\/p>\n

Set millions of years ago among early human ancestors, Ember follows a prehistoric tribe that depends on a single flame to survive. When that flame is lost, a young girl and her father are thrust into an epic quest to reclaim fire.<\/p>\n

The scope of the project is breathtaking. Pablos showed a map of the terrain that his primates have to cross, and it looked like something drawn by Tolkien. \u201cThe world-building in Klaus was just a small town. This time, it\u2019s a whole continent, so we had a lot of work to do,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

Pablos described the film\u2019s origins as stemming from his fascination with the book and 1980s live-action feature Quest for Fire and the idea of \u201cthe future of humanity depending on this small, flickering flame that could go out at any minute.\u201d Rather than retelling the original, adult-oriented story, Ember reimagines the concept as a family adventure set \u201cat the dawn of humankind,\u201d blending meticulous paleo-research with the stylized, hand-crafted aesthetic that defined Klaus, with a slightly more mature look and plot.<\/p>\n

The SPA Studios team consulted anthropologists, studied fossil records, and even learned primitive fire-making techniques at Spain\u2019s Atapuerca archaeological site. \u201cWe went to the Museum of Human Evolution in Burgos, invited paleontologists to give lectures \u2014 probably too many,\u201d Pablos joked. \u201cWe had to know exactly what that place would look like, what kind of fauna populated it.\u201d<\/p>\n

From Netflix\u2019s Ashes<\/p>\n

Netflix had greenlit Ember after the Oscar-nominated success of Klaus, but the project was caught in a flood of internal restructuring that wiped out several animated features in development.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Pablos retained the Ember IP and, rather than abandoning it, he kept refining the project. The Cartoon Springboard presentation featured extensive test footage, animation studies, and nearly finalized sequences showing how SPA Studios\u2019 proprietary tools and techniques \u2014 the same pipeline that powered Klaus \u2014 would evolve for the new film. Some of those tools are even available now to animators who use Blender.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were developing Ember in Grease Pencil for Blender,\u201d Pablos said. \u201cOur goal was to put a free 2D animation tool out there that you would choose even over the other paid options.\u201d The team had reached an advanced prototype when Netflix pulled the plug. \u201cWe got canceled before we finished, so we published the version that we had. It\u2019s still out there,\u201d he explained, although it may take a bit of digging to find.<\/p>\n

Primed to Catch Fire<\/p>\n

From what was shown, Ember is not an early-stage pitch; it\u2019s a full, Hollywood-caliber feature, packaged and ready to head into production with the right backing. The characters\u2019 visual language is fully defined, the story is polished, the worldbuilding \u2014 a prehistoric Africa populated by extinct megaflora and fauna \u2014 looks immense and tangible, and full, minutes-long sequences are ready to be animated.<\/p>\n

Even with this level of polish, Pablos admitted that finding a new home for an original animated feature in today\u2019s market is a steep climb, especially one as ambitious as Ember. According to the director, the critique he hears most often is that studios are only interested in existing IPs. \u201cNow, if it\u2019s not based on something else, they don\u2019t even want to hear about it. That\u2019s the obstacle right now,\u201d he elaborated.<\/p>\n

Still, Pablos remains undeterred. \u201cWe have several potential distributors and investors in negotiation,\u201d he confirmed. \u201cThere\u2019s not a production plan yet, but I\u2019m optimistic. There\u2019s more than one suitor, so it seems like it could happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, to keep the project alive in conversations, Pablos has strategically rebranded Ember for potential partners as \u201ca new take on Quest for Fire,\u201d citing the original novel as a touchpoint. \u201cThe moment we did that, sadly, people were interested because it\u2019s no longer a brand-new thing,\u201d he said with a wry smile familiar to anyone who knows the man. \u201cJust to get to the next conversation, you have to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Spark That Endures<\/p>\n

Like its undersized heroine\u2019s quest to protect a fragile flame, Ember itself has become a story of persistence. The clips shown in Madrid, some humorous, some haunting, revealed a project full of heart, hard work, and scope. It is unmistakably grand in its ambition.<\/p>\n

During a post-presentation audience Q&A, Pablos ended his talk on a note of realism and encouragement for the young animators in the room: \u201cHollywood was always in flames,\u201d he said, using an appropriate enough analogy. \u201cIt\u2019s never going to be perfect. Those who succeed find a path through the madness. So don\u2019t externalize the problem. Keep fighting, keep doing it yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar-nominated Klaus director and Despicable Me creator Sergio Pablos took the stage at Cartoon Springboard in Madrid this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344],"class_list":{"0":"post-252818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}