Illumination founder Chris Meledandri has confirmed he is working on new projects with Pharrell Williams and Pierre Coffin at the Annecy International Film Festival.
Both Meledandri and Williams talked briefly about the project after the artist made a surprise appearance at the festival to present the animation supremo with its Golden Ticket lifetime achievement award on Wednesday.
The pair have been friends ever since Williams wrote the soundtrack and theme song for Illumination’s first film Despicable Me.
Williams is currently in France putting the final touches to his first collection as creative director for Louis Vuitton, which will be unveiled as the opening show of Men’s Fashion Week in Paris on June 20.
Quizzed by Deadline for more details on the project in a brief one-on-one after the ceremony, Meledandri said it was too early to divulge anything more about the project.
“It’s too early to talk about. It’s something that as he said is very unlike anything we’ve seen made, very ambitious and could take us years and years to make,” he said.
He was more forthcoming about his new project with Despicable Me and Minions director Pierre Coffin.
“We are working on another film but we’re also working on some short format animation which is such an incredible medium,” said Meledandri.
“That structure of the short format is just incredible, working in that efficient way to get right to something. We hope very shortly to share one of the short film projects.”
Meledandri first came to Annecy in 2010 Despicable Me.
“To be given the honor from Annecy, it’s something that 13 years ago, I could never have imagined that I would be sitting here today. We were just hoping that the movie we made was going to touch audiences and entertain them,” he said.
“It inspires reflection back. There were people in audience today from my days at Fox which was really meaningful, one of my directors Carlos Saldanha, who directed our second Ice Age film and Rio, these were things I developed before I left to set up Illumination,” he said.
“Carlo’s there, Pierre and Benjamin [Renner] all representing different parts of my career and then those very gracious words by Pharrell. This is one of those days that will be with me for the rest of my life.”
The award ceremony was preceded by a Work in Progress session about Illumination’s upcoming film Migration about a family of mallard ducks who decide to leave the comfort of their pond to head south for the winter.
Meledandri recounted how he had started developing Migration with The White Lotus writer and director Mike White.
He contacted Renner on the back of his Oscar-nominated animation Ernest And Celestine as well as his adaptation of his own graphic novel The Big Bad Fox, with Patrick Imbert.
Renner said he was surprised at the request for a meeting.
“I thought there must be a misunderstanding. I was coming from, 2D animation and small films and you were producing Mario and all these big franchises,” he said.
