{"id":506702,"date":"2026-06-18T20:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T20:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/506702\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T20:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T20:26:10","slug":"apple-original-films-making-animated-movie-of-little-santa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/506702\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple Original Films Making Animated Movie of &#8216;Little Santa,&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/apple-original-films\/\" id=\"auto-tag_apple-original-films\" data-tag=\"apple-original-films\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple Original Films<\/a> will make an animated feature adaptation of the popular children\u2019s book \u201cLittle Santa.\u201d The project will be directed by Peter Baynton, who recently landed an Academy Award for Apple\u2019s animated short \u201cThe Boy the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThe film will feature original songs from Oscar and Grammy-winning songwriter, comedian, actor and writer <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/bret-mckenzie\/\" id=\"auto-tag_bret-mckenzie\" data-tag=\"bret-mckenzie\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bret McKenzie<\/a>, who is best known for his work on \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/flight-of-the-conchords\/\" id=\"auto-tag_flight-of-the-conchords\" data-tag=\"flight-of-the-conchords\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Flight of the Conchords<\/a>,\u201d and a script from Martin Hynes, who co-wrote the Academy Award-winning \u201cToy Story 4.\u201d Julia Pistor (\u201cThe SpongeBob Squarepants Movie\u201d) will serve as producer. \u201cLittle Santa\u201d will be animated by WildBrain, including pre-production by WildBrain\u2019s House of Cool. Hynes will also serve as executive producer alongside McKenzie.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tThe book by author and illustrator Jon Agee asks how did Santa become Santa? The film will follow young Santa Claus on an Oz-like trek through the North Pole, where he meets and inspires offbeat friends who will create Christmas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tApple Original Films\u2019 in investing in the animation space, with its upcoming slate including \u201cSnoopy Unleashed,\u201d its first original Peanuts feature. The company\u2019s film ambitions have been harder to decipher. It scored at the box office with last year\u2019s \u201cF1: The Movie,\u201d but the streamer hasn\u2019t had a major theatrical release since that film opened last summer. Its forthcoming films include the Ben Stiller\u00a0and\u00a0Jake Johnson pickleball comedy \u201cThe Dink,\u201d the Ryan Reynolds action comedy \u201cMayday,\u201d and \u201cMatchbox the Movie.\u201d Apple has had more success with its series with the streamer releasing critically acclaimed shows such as \u201cThe Studio,\u201d \u201cTed Lasso,\u201d \u201cSlow Horses\u201d and \u201cWidow\u2019s Bay.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apple Original Films will make an animated feature adaptation of the popular children\u2019s book \u201cLittle Santa.\u201d The project&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[135450,216540,93,216541,61,60,270],"class_list":["post-506702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-apple-original-films","tag-bret-mckenzie","tag-entertainment","tag-flight-of-the-conchords","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}