{"id":507074,"date":"2026-06-23T11:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T11:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/507074\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T11:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T11:52:09","slug":"forgotten-island-team-talk-filipino-culture-casting-lea-salonga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/507074\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Forgotten Island’ Team Talk Filipino Culture & Casting Lea Salonga"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOne of the buzziest movies at Annecy<\/a> this year is DreamWorks\u2019 Forgotten Island<\/a> and its creators were on hand today to talk a packed crowd through their \u201clove letter to Filipino culture.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe old adage is write what you know, but we wrote who you know,\u201d said director Joel Crawford<\/a> of the movie set in the Philippines.<\/p>\n

\n\tCrawford, whose wife is Filipina, re-teamed with Filipino-American helmer Januel Mercado on the pic, having worked together on the Academy Award-nominated Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.<\/p>\n

\n\tForgotten Island is set in the Southeast Asian nation during the\u00a01990s, as two childhood friends, Jo and Raissa, promise to remain close forever once they graduate from high school. Raissa is preparing to move to the U.S. at the urging of her parents, but fearing the loss of their bond, Jo tries to persuade her to stay, with interesting consequences.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe movie mixes an American voice cast like R&B star H.E.R. and Dave Franco with Filipina legends like Lea Salonga, who voiced Princess Jasmine in Aladdin and Fa Mulan in Mulan. Salonga, however, \u201cain\u2019t no hero in our movie,\u201d explained Mercado, as she plays the Dreaded\u00a0Manananggal, one of many creatures in the film based on Filipino folklore. <\/p>\n

\n\tMany talented Filipinos contributed to the movie behind the camera and Crawford paid homage to them today, including the composer and the 2D animation team from Manila-based Snipple Animation that added a layer of anime to proceedings.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSnipple\u2019s distinct style is inspired by 2D anime,\u201d he added. \u201cIt reminds you of Dragon Ball Z, which uses the same inspiration. They are pushing boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier today, Webtoon Productions animation boss told us American buyers<\/a> have finally embraced anime in all its different forms.<\/p>\n

\n\tCrawford and Mercado were speaking at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival<\/a>, which runs until Saturday. Universal<\/a> and DreamWorks execs are out in force. Yesterday, they revealed a new Illumination movie<\/a>, Not Alone, starring Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet and\u00a0Selena Gomez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the buzziest movies at Annecy this year is DreamWorks\u2019 Forgotten Island and its creators were on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[208692,229561,146,173267,85,46,233041,19461],"class_list":["post-507074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-annecy","tag-annecy-international-animation-film-festival","tag-entertainment","tag-forgotten-island","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-joel-crawford","tag-universal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}