Larrikins

Larrikins was a cancelled American computer animated musical comedy film directed by Tim Minchin and Chris Miller and starring Margot Robbie and Hugh Jackman, from a script by Harry Cripps. The film was intended to be produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Universal Pictures. It was scheduled for a February 16, 2018 release, before Minchin announced the film's cancellation on March 5, 2017.

Had been released, it would have been the first DreamWorks Animation film to be distributed by Universal Pictures, whose parent company NBCUniversal acquired DWA in 2016. However, it was later reworked into a short film called Bilby.

Plot
When an uptight bilby gets kicked out of his sheltered life of his family burrow, he ventures out and finds himself launched on a musical adventure across the mystical Australian outback.

Cast

 * Margot Robbie as a dingo
 * Hugh Jackman
 * Naomi Watts
 * Rose Byrne
 * Ben Mendelsohn
 * Jacki Weaver
 * Josh Lawson
 * Damon Herriman
 * Ewen Leslie

Production
Larrikins is based on an original idea by the Australian screenplay writer, Harry Cripps. He started working on the script in 2011, after DreamWorks Animation decided to make a film with an Australian story. Announced in 2013, Tim Minchin was initially only set to write the music and lyrics for the film, with possibility to have additional creative role at the film. Minchin, who liked classical Disney animated musicals like Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, had made a deal with DreamWorks Animation, after he had complained to Will Davies, one of the writers of How to Train Your Dragon, that no one had been doing such animated musical anymore. Waiting for almost four years for the right screenplay, DWA gave him the Cripps' script, which got the Minchin's attention: "...it's a bit Star Wars, a bit Gods Must Be Crazy, a big road journey... It's really funny and cheeky and Australian, without being parochially, nationalistically Australian." Minchin and Cripps then reworked the story with songs, successfully setting the project in motion. By 2014, Minchin's role expanded to directing the film, with Chris Miller joining him by 2016.

In June 2014, 20th Century Fox announced that the film would be released on February 16, 2018. Following NBCUniversal's acquisition of DreamWorks Animation in 2016, Universal Pictures took over the distribution rights for the film.

On March 5, 2017, Minchin announced that the film had been canceled: "...a couple of days ago, the animated film to which I've dedicated the last 4 years of my life was shut down by new studio execs." According to Deadline, the reason for the cancellation was that "creatively it just wasn't working out well."

Gallery
Peter de Sève, designer of the Ice Age franchise, was hired as the first designer on the film and made concept art for the film.

Trivia

 * This would have been the first DreamWorks Animation film to be released in February.
 * It would have also been Universal Pictures' second animated theatrical film released in February, after Curious George in 2006.
 * This would have been Dreamworks's fourth musical after The Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado, and Trolls.
 * The title itself, Larrikins, was an Australian slang word for maverick or rebel.