The original pitch was called Penguin Avatar!

“What they do is, they basically put you in a room and ask you to come up with three ideas. They want three ideas so they can help curate which direction you go. You pitch those three ideas, and then they might say, ‘Okay, maybe this is the one you should develop more.’

It’s a great way to avoid someone getting stuck on just one idea. Sometimes they’ll take bits and pieces from all three. In fact, the idea we picked for him was the one he was least interested in – it was his throwaway idea.

The logline or pitch was called Penguin Avatar. It went through a lot of iterations. One was Pete, obviously, saying, ‘No penguins.’

Turns out beavers were perfect animals for our movie the positive impact they have on the environment and the ecosystem. So we went with that."

"We got to crawl into an abandoned beaver lodge. Daniel actually couldn't fit all the way through but I could fit in. It was so comfortable. And you could see how animals would want to live in there. Those trips were really important in developing the look of Hoppers.'

"I hope people start to love beavers. They're cute, but they're also really good for the environment. We went to a place that was surrounded by forest fire damage' the only part that was still green was the beaver pond."

“These characters are designed, and we’re drawing them for years before we cast them. But once they’re cast — I mean, I’d love to hear what an animator would say about this— I think the animators start putting pieces of the actors into the performance, maybe even more than what’s in the original character design.

We knew that Bobby Moynihan was probably going to play King George, so we tried to get some of him into the character. King George has a darker muzzle to represent the mustache, and the chin is a very specific shape. It’s those little details that add up over time.

It’s probably a balance of both, but there’s something about the voice acting and the animation choices that really reflect the talent we bring on.

There’s also a lot of improv. With Dave Franco, for example, I heard he literally had rows of empty water bottles because he’s such an intense character with a lot of shouting. He was improvising a lot of lines and seeing what would fit.”

“Tom Lizard just came out of nowhere. He wasn’t even really intrinsic to the original pitch of the movie. He just kind of slid in, won everyone over, and we found out he was big not through the meme, but through audience previews.

They loved everyone else, everyone loves King George and Mabel, but somehow Tom is the star that kind of came out of nowhere, and then obviously he went viral.”