Making Friends

Making Friends is an upcoming American 3D computer-animated/traditionally-animated comedy adventure film produced by Sony Pictures Animation, Aleka Entertainment, and Scholastic Entertainment, and distributed by Columbia Pictures. Based on Kristen Gudsnuk's graphic novels of the same name, the film will be directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, written by Lord & Miller, Karey Kirkpatrick, Tim Heeler, Joel Cohen and Kristen Gudsnuk from a story by Gudsnuk and Aaron Spencer. It is set to be released in 2021.

Premise
"Danielle is struggling with being separated from her friends now that she’s in seventh grade. Feeling lonely, she draws a picture of Prince Neptune (the evil-but-cool villain on the Solar Sisters anime she watches) in Great-Aunt Elma’s notebook, only for him to appear! He’s still got his magical powers, but more insidiously, he convinces Danielle there’s nothing wrong with continuing to use the notebook to make her life easier.

''That doesn’t work, though, particularly once Danielle creates a friend, Madison, for herself. She envisions a cool, funny, smart girl, but Madison’s intelligence means she soon starts asking uncomfortable questions about why she doesn’t remember anything or seem to have parents. Danielle learns to worry about consequences to her decisions, ultimately having to find a way to team up with her when she finds out Neptune is planning something that could spell disaster for Melton."''

-Aleka Entertainment

Cast

 * Kristen Schaal as Danielle Radley
 * Chloë Grace Moretz as Madison Fontaine
 * Josh Brolin as Prince Neptune
 * TBA as Nick Maloney
 * Jeff Garcia as Tom Torres
 * Will Forte as Matt

Development
In August 2018, Variety reported that Aleka Entertainment had acquired the rights to the graphic novel to develop a film based off it, with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller attached as directors. It was later announced in February of 2019 that the film would be produced by Sony Pictures Animation, and the film would be produced outside of the studio's pipeline at a significantly lower cost. It was instead animated at Mikros Image in Montreal, Canada, and at Aleka Entertainment in Burbank, California, and therefore looks identical to Gudsnuk's original drawing style, as well as differently than most of SPA's films. Karey Kirkpatrick was also attached as one of the writers of the screenplay, and Rich Moore also signed on as producer following his move from Disney to Sony Pictures Animation. The crew is working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a November 2020 interview with Tim, he reported that the animation for Danielle's world would be animated at Mikros using CGI, and the animation for people and objects that come from the notebook would be done using 2D animation done at Aleka. He also reported that the film would combine the plots of both of the books into one.

Along with the announcement of the third entry in the book series, Third Time's a Charm, it was reported that the film would recieve a sequel that would adapt the third book, should the film do well.

Casting
In July 2019, it was announced that Kristen Schaal was cast as Danielle Radley, alongside Chloë Grace Moretz as Madison Fontaine. Benedict Cumberbatch was originally intended to be cast as Neptune, before being replaced with Josh Brolin.