The Little Prince (; ) is a 2015 English-language French-Italian animated fantasy adventure comedy-drama film directed by Mark Osborne and based on the 1943 novella of the same name by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The film stars the voices of Jeff Bridges, Rachel McAdams, Paul Rudd, Bud Cort, Marion Cotillard, Benicio del Toro, James Franco, Ricky Gervais, Paul Giamatti, Riley Osborne, Albert Brooks and Mackenzie Foy. It is the first adaptation as a full-length animated feature of The Little Prince.
The film relates the story of the book using stop motion animation, which is woven into a CGI animated framing narrative about a young girl who has just met the book's now-elderly aviator narrator, who tells her the story of his meeting with the Little Prince in the Sahara desert. The film's animation was provided by studios ON Animation Studios and Mikros Image.
The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 22 May 2015 in an out-of-competition screening, followed by a theatrical release in France on 29 July 2015 by Paramount Pictures and in Italy on 1 January 2016 by Lucky Red. The film was originally set to be released theatrically in the United States on 18 March 2016 before budget cuts halted the release; Netflix later acquired the US, UK, and Australia distribution rights and released it on 5 August 2016.
The film has received positive reviews, earning praise for its style of animation and homage paid to the source material, and earned $97.6 million on a €75 million budget, becoming the most successful French animated film abroad of all time.
The film was dedicated to Jake Eberts, as well as Mark Osborne's mother, who both died before the film was released.
Plot A single mother and her young daughter move to a new neighborhood. The mother imposes a coaching life plan for the girl that leaves no time for playing or making friends, all for her to enroll at the prestigious Werth Academy. The girl, however, becomes distracted by her elderly retired Aviator neighbor, who tells her the story of the "Little Prince", a boy he claims to have encountered after crash-landing in the Sahara. As soon as they met, the boy revealed he needed a sheep. Lacking drawing skills, the Aviator drew him a box containing a sheep, satisfying the Little Prince, and they became friends.
The Little Prince's home is "Asteroid B-612", which is covered in baobab sprouts. After clearing away the sprouts, the Little Prince discovered and nurtured a rose into maturity. Despite becoming his friend, she was selfish. Both being too young to know how to love each other, they separated. The Little Prince started traveling away from his asteroid. During his journey, he meets adults from other asteroids, such as a King, a Conceited Man, and a wealthy Businessman. The Little Prince eventually lands on Earth, where he befriends a red fox. The Fox later says goodbye to the Little Prince, advising him to always see with his heart. The Aviator gives the girl a stuffed Fox as a gift, telling her that he will leave soon to go find the Little Prince. Infuriated that she has not been following the plan, the mother redoubles the girl's assignments.
Nevertheless, the girl continues to read the story of the Little Prince, secretly visiting the Aviator to find out how it ends. The Aviator reveals that the Little Prince succumbed to a venomous snake bite to be reunited with his beloved Rose. Although the Aviator assures her that he believes the Little Prince succeeded, the girl, upset by the dark ending, wishes that she had never met the Aviator or heard the story. She tries to forget about the Little Prince and focuses on her assignments.
Towards the summer's end, the Aviator is hospitalised. Deciding to put things right, the girl sets off in search of the Little Prince. Sneaking into the aviator's yard, the girl, accompanied by her now-conscious stuffed Fox and The Little Prince's story pages, flies the Aviator's now-fixed plane into space. They find all the stars gone while landing on an asteroid populated by workaholic adults owned by the Businessman. He holds all the stars to power his asteroid and belongings (including his employees). After encountering a policeman and an elevator operator who turn out to be the Conceited Man and the King, they find the Little Prince. To their surprise, he has become "Mr. Prince", an anxious adult who works as a janitor for the Businessman, having no recollection of his past.
Mr. Prince takes the girl to an "academy" where she is to be "reconditioned" as an adult via a machine controlled by a Teacher. Recognizing the drawing of his sheep's box from the Aviator's pages, Mr. Prince begins to regain his memories and saves the girl from the same fate that he had by putting the Teacher in the machine instead.
They escape from the Businessman together and liberate all of the stars from his glass vault, which return to their rightful place in the sky. The girl and the Fox then take Mr. Prince back to B-612, which is overgrown with dead, withered baobabs. They find the Rose dead. However, after seeing her image in the sunrise, Mr. Prince turns back to his younger self, and the baobabs disappear, restoring his hope.
The girl and the Fox (once again an inanimate toy) return home. The next morning, she and her mother visit the Aviator in the hospital. The girl apologizes and gives him the formerly loose pages bound together as a book, along with all the formerly missing parts filled in. The girl later begins her studies at Werth Academy and reconciles with her mother. Both of them stargaze one night, while the Little Prince and the Aviator are heard laughing together on Asteroid B-612.
Voice cast
Riley Osborne as the Little Prince, an eternally young boy and resident of "Asteroid B612", a small asteroid roughly the same size as him. Paul Rudd as Mr. Prince, the adult Little Prince who has forgotten his own childhood and becomes an anxious, incompetent janitor for the Businessman. Mackenzie Foy as the Little Girl, a smart, feisty, and precocious girl with a kind heart. She has a very inquisitive mind and struggles to balance growing up and basking in her childhood. Jeff Bridges as the Aviator, an eccentric and retired aviator who befriended the Little Prince in the Sahara Desert and acts as a mentor to the Little Girl. Rachel McAdams as the Mother, a busy, sensible, loving and committed mother who cares for her Little Girl. James Franco as the Fox, a red fox whom the Little Prince cares for and tames, and who eventually becomes one of his many friends on Earth. Vincent Cassel provides the French voice of the Fox in the French dub of the film. Marion Cotillard as the Rose, a bright and beautiful rose whom the Little Prince cares for and talks to. Cotillard also provides the French voice of the Rose in the French dub of the film. Benicio del Toro as the Snake, a sly and venomous snake whom the Little Prince meets and is instantly wary of. Albert Brooks as the Businessman, an arrogant and greedy businessperson who owns the stars in the sky and generates money to buy more stars Paul Giamatti as the Academy Teacher, a slim, tall, and deceptive teacher who operates an "Academy", a place where children are transformed into workaholic adults. Bud Cort as the King, an unreliable king of an asteroid and whom the Little Prince visits. He becomes an elevator operator for the Businessman later in the film. Ricky Gervais as the Conceited Man, a man who conceives a personality and sticks to it. He becomes a police officer for the Businessman later in the film. Jacquie Barnbrook as the Nurse, a nurse in the hospital where the Aviator is hospitalized. Marcel Bridges as the Concerned Neighbor, a serious neighbor who is, along with his wife, curious at the Aviator's attitudes. Jeffy Branion as the Policeman, a police officer who repeatedly arrests and detains the Aviator.
Production Development On 14 October 2010, Kung Fu Panda co-director and More creator Mark Osborne was hired and set to direct The Little Prince based on the 1943 novel of the same name. Irena Brignull (writer of The Boxtrolls) and Bob Persichetti wrote the script for the film based on a story conceived by Mark Osborne. , Alexis Vonarb and Dimitri Rassam produced the film with the budget of $70‒80 million for release in 2015.
The film features a framing device not present in the novel with a schoolgirl discovering The Little Prince through a reclusive elderly neighbour. Mark Osborne made the film's hero a little girl after research from the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media revealed the gender disparity among characters in animated films. She represents "the spirit of adulthood", according to Osborne. "In animation, it always had to be boy-centric. Right now there seems to be a changing of the tide but these things don't happen overnight. These movies take years to make, so back when I was first pushing to make the little girl the main character, it was seen as quite revolutionary", Osborne recalled in April 2015.
The film uses computer animation for the girl's world and stop-motion animation for the world of The Little Prince as she imagines it. Development and storyboarding of the film was completed in Paris. The team then moved to Montreal for the final phases of animation, lighting, colour and production to maximise the tax benefits offered to a French-Canadian project, a co-venture between Onyx Entertainment in Paris, Mediaset and Lucky Red in Italy, and Mikros Image Canada in Montreal. One of the film's associate producers is Brice Garnier from Canada's Kaibou Production. Kaibou service rendered Line production and service production (3D animation and stop motion). Studio partners were Studio Mikros Image Canada, Toutenkartoon Canada, and Technicolor (picture and sound post-production). Kaibou also provided financing through tax credits, gap financing, and local taxes.
Osborne was pitching the film to actors, artists, and distributors all over the world using what he called a "magic suitcase" full of hand-made visual aids specifically created to communicate the tone and passion for the project. Model maker Joe Schmidt (the modeler of Coraline) created this suitcase, which held the art book, and told the story of the film visually. Schmidt had created a snapshot of Osborne's vision for the film. A constellation of tiny planets and stars lit up on one side, a giant art book of illustrations filled the other. From somewhere deep inside the case, Osborne pulled out two large white circles that held slides that when placed up to each eye displayed 3D images of stop-motion puppets. Then Osborne started flipping switches. In no time, a one-way mirror slid away to reveal a hidden chamber holding a collection of yellowed pages below. It was a mock-up of Saint-Exupéry's original manuscript, a key plot point in Osborne's film. In four years, Osborne pitched the film close to 400 times.
Casting On 5 June 2013, it was announced that James Franco, Marion Cotillard, Mackenzie Foy, Benicio del Toro, Paul Giamatti, Rachel McAdams and Jeff Bridges had joined the film. Albert Brooks joined the cast on 12 September to voice The Businessman, a villain.