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Peggy Holmes
Director Peggy Holmes and animation director Yuriko Senoo give us an insider tour of the world of Skydance Animation’s Luck. By Ramin Zahed
I
f you ever believed that our world is ruled by little forces of good and bad fortune, then Skydance Animation’s first feature Luck is the perfect pic for you. The clever and imaginative movie centers on a young girl named Sam Greenfield, who considers herself the unluckiest person in the world. When she accidentally stumbles into the never-before-seen Land of Luck, she sets out on a quest to bring some good luck home for her best friend. Of course, she has to team up with the magical creatures of this world to make her wishes come true. The film is directed by Peggy Holmes, a Disney veteran who also helmed two Tinker Bell spinoff movies (The Pirate Fairy, Secret of the Wings) as well as The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning. “I was very excited to work on a completely original property at a brand-new studio,” she tells Animation Magazine during a recent Zoom interview. “I’ve been working on this movie for about two and a half years,” she noted. “I was developing a TV series at Skydance when they asked me to come and lead the movie.”
She adds, “There were two things that were part of the project that really appealed to me: this idea of Sam having grown up in the foster care system and that a leprechaun was involved. I come from a really big family and belonging to the family is the most meaningful thing in my life, and I could see that creating a story around Sam who has this emotional journey of finding her own family. And the leprechaun! I’m partly Irish and thought I could really blow it up and develop this leprechaun character into a full magical world called the Land of Luck. So, I told them if I could create this deep, heartfelt journey in a super magical world, I’m in. And they said, ‘Let’s go!’”
Holmes says she looks back fondly at her time at Disney. “I loved my time at Disney. I was an actress, dancer, choreographer and director,” she recalls “Over at Skydance, we are a brandnew studio. We get to help build the studio from the ground up. Every day, we are learning something new and everyday it’s super challenging. It was exciting to be working with producers John
Lasseter, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, David Eisenmann and [Skydance Animation president] Holly Edwards and be part of building something from the beginning.” The film has had a complicated development history. It was first set up with DreamWorks veteran Alessandro Carloni (Kung Fu Panda 3), with a script by Jonathan Aibel & Glenn Berger. Then, when John Lasseter joined the studio as CCO after leaving Disney-Pixar, he tapped Holmes to take over the project, and writer Kiel Murray (Cars 3, Raya and the Last Dragon) was also brought on board. Actress Emma Thompson was also attached to the project, but she quit the movie in early 2019 to protest Lasseter’s new position at the studio. Having worked with Lasseter on the Tinker Bell movies, Holmes was pleased to be working with the former Pixar and Disney CCO once again. “John is a great mentor, ultra-creative artist and he’s a master storyteller,” she says. “He always has these great ideas and is there when you need him. He’s a partner in the best way: He’ll say come to me with your story problems and I’ll help solve them for
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august 22
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