Jim Cooper, Jeff Dixon, and Leo Riley talk about the spooky tone and unique animation style of their all-new DreamWorks series that teams two smart kids - and their mom - in a race to return artifacts stolen by their ancestors and lift the curse to get their dad back; just in time for Halloween, the show hits Apple TV+ today, October 27.
Premiering today, Friday, October 27, Curses!, from DreamWorks Animation, hits Apple TV+ just in time for Halloween. In the all-new animated, spooky adventure-comedy series for kids, when a generations-long family curse turns Alex Vanderhouven to stone, it’s up to his two children, Pandora and Russ, and his wife Sky, to return artifacts stolen by their ancestors to their rightful homes to finally lift the curse for good.
Created and executive produced by Jim Cooper (DreamWorks Dragons) and Jeff Dixon (The Hurricane Heist), the show is also executive produced by John Krasinski (A Quiet Place Parts I and II), with Allyson Seeger (A Quiet Place Parts I and II) serving as co-executive producer. Leo Riley (Guardians of the Galaxy, Tron: Uprising) serves as supervising producer, with Chris Copeland (Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts) and Justin Copeland (Wonder Woman: Bloodlines) serving as creative consultants. Riley also directs, with animation services provided by CGCG and House of Cool.
Curses! began as a collaboration between creators Jim Cooper and Jeff Dixon. The two had never written together before; they met when their children started school together, and after dropping them off, they’d walk home and discuss their writing careers. “Jeff was mostly in horror, and I was mostly in family animation,” Cooper shares. “Sometime over the years, we thought, ‘Hey, it would be cool to combine the two.’ We hit upon the idea of Curses! after discussing what we call my ‘family curse.’ That got us thinking about other family curses and their causes, and things just sort of went from there.”
“It started with Coop telling me the story of his ‘family curse,’ Dixon adds. “He told me that all the men on one side of his family died young, generation after generation. After he showed me a photo of his grandfather as a baby holding an actual human skull, we started thinking, ‘Holy hell, that skull must somehow be the origin of the curse!’ Then our imaginations started spinning out of control thinking about curses and what happens to later generations when a family line is cursed because of something their ancestors did, to no fault of their own. And it only grew from there.”
Cooper and Dixon developed the idea, pitched it, sold it, developed it further with DreamWorks Animation, then have run the writer's room and executive produced/showrun for the production. Phew. They’ve been busy. “They sometimes get people coffee too,” Dixon notes. Leo Riley was brought on during development to help production and various department heads, as well as shepherd scripts through the production process. More specifically, he says, “This includes consulting with showrunners, working with episodic directors and storyboard teams, reviewing/finalizing animatics, reviewing/noting production art with various leads in design, effects, animation, compositing, cutting episodes with the final picture editor, overseeing mixes, and fielding executive notes at the various stages.” Double phew!
According to the trio, their working dynamic is casual, with each having a “no-ego rule” - they discuss everything before reaching a consensus. “As far as the story goes, that is pretty much between Jeff and I to hash out along with the writers’ room,” Cooper says. “But Leo’s word obviously matters most in relation to actual production. If he says we can’t do something, we listen and adjust.
The writing dynamic between Cooper and Dixon centers on finding the right balance of horror, comedy, and heart. Cooper's darker sensibility sometimes leads to going too dark, while Dixon's comedic tendencies sometimes got too zany. Each pulls the other back. “Together, we keep each other in check and land in the sweet spot right in between,” Dixon reveals. “And we’re both softies at our core, so the heart was there in equal measure.”
Riley laughs, “I stay out of the way as Jeff and Jim drop hammers on each other. My only request is that they write the episodes they want, set aside the bulk of production considerations, and that by working with production, I would figure out how we could realize the scripts within the parameters of our schedule and budget.”
“Once we got to production, boards, animatics, and beyond, we really leaned into Leo’s genius every step of the way,” Dixon adds. “He’s seriously got a visual gift, so why would we not want him leading the way with production and direction? And luckily for me, he leans more horror too, so together we’d try to get some more scary stuff in there. Hehe!”
The landscape for kids’ animation is highly competitive, filled with considerable sameness in design and tone. For Curses!, the approach to creating the show was different: let’s not make a show specifically for kids. “We are making a show for everyone, but it’s accessible to kids,” says Dixon. “We wanted to make a show that not only we would want to see, but our children would as well. That translated into the writing, the visual style, the direction, everything. People sometimes have a tendency to think that you need to dumb things down or overly protect kids in their entertainment, and I couldn’t disagree more.”
He continues, "We are also very much grounded in the idea of family, both the family you’re born with and the family you choose. What sets our show apart is that the family actually goes on adventures together. We felt no need to separate the kids away from their parents as is usually the case in kids’ entertainment of this kind. We wanted the mother, Sky, to go with the kids on the adventures, and the kids actually wanted her there as well.”
Stylistically, DreamWorks was supportive of creating something completely different from other shows, starting with character design. There was no “house style” or look the show had to incorporate. Visual development decision-making was driven by the idea that it should look cool and fit the tone of the narrative, though certain considerations were made based upon requests from in-house development and Apple's animation division.
“When Leo and art director David Chung suggested doing the show in an EC Comics [“Tales from the Crypt”] 2D-looking 3D production style, the studio execs became enthusiastic supporters of this new direction,” says Cooper. “They encouraged the show despite the fact that it would require building a completely new pipeline from scratch and cause headaches on the production side.”
“When I came on, there was already some strong character development via Chris and Justin Copeland and some concept artists that they had been working with,” Riley says. “I looked everything over and started having conversations with David Chung. We wanted to do something different. We’re all fans of the artform, so you see everything happening around you. We landed on an EC Comic ‘illustrated’ style early on. I felt it would immediately anchor us in the horror space, and from a production standpoint, the heavy brushwork would help us readily combine CG and 2D assets. It allowed for a more robust scope of show than we might normally have been able to achieve within the parameters of the production.”
Dixon adds, “As a massive fan of these EC Comics, I almost yelled at them to get out of my head! We knew we were onto something, but it was quite different from anything DreamWorks had ever done before. It was completely untested and very different from DreamWorks’ normal ‘house style.’ We had to break and alter long-existing pipelines, and DWA not only allowed us but was excited about the potential. They were amazing in allowing us to take some serious chances with brand new styles that were totally original for the company. I will eternally hold them in the highest regard for that.”
The most challenging aspect of animation production was getting buy-in on the visual style. Another was finding that line of “scary” that was appropriate. The most difficult part of the production was that the new pipeline was being built while it was being used to make the show. However, Cooper encouraged the team to push the envelope and not let perceived production limitations stop them from trying something new. “We were also experimenting [with the look of the show] at the time,” he explains. “’Hmm, I wonder what it would look like if we did that...' was not uncommon to hear. But bless Leo for not using this untested pipeline as an excuse for pulling back on our ambitions. He told Jeff and me to just write what we thought was best for the show. So, we just kept pushing the envelope. And lo and behold, production was not only able to keep up with everything we requested, but they far exceeded our expectations.”
For Dixon, the most challenging aspect of the series was scope. “Coop and I think big, and sometimes it’s far too big for a TV timeline,” he admits. “But somehow, someway, our absolutely incredible team pulled off some extremely large ideas in magical ways, all within a TV pipeline. Honestly, I still don’t fully understand how we pulled off so much with such tight TV deadlines.”
So, what can the creators share about their show’s inaugural season? “You can expect to see something very different from what one normally sees in the traditional family animation realm,” Cooper says. “Not only is Curses! unusual in its combination of horror, comedy, and action, but the stories themselves deal with subjects and themes very rarely touched upon in such shows. It is not always good guys versus bad guys. Oftentimes, the family discovers the antagonists they are dealing with are misunderstood and that the solution to all their problems is more complicated than just overcoming the baddies. Even if they are battling golden baboon heads, angry water, or painted spirits.”
Trying not to sound too much like a carnival barker, Dixon chimes in, “This first season has everything – adventures around the world, frightening journeys into unknown caverns, scares you won’t see coming, mysterious characters from around the globe, dangers lurking around every corner, suspense not normally seen in children’s animation, and a creepy atmosphere that is unlike anything you’ve experienced. And a whole bunch of laughs, heart, and emotion as well.”
“We’re so proud of the unique adventures within; it’s best to experience them fresh without any spoilers,” he concludes. "Okay, fine, one spoiler: there are a lot of disembodied heads in our show, including one of our main characters and, well, a clown. But you’ll have to watch to understand exactly what I mean.”
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
