Jeff Bridges, Rachel McAdams, James Franco, Benicio Del Toro and a Twilight alum are among the stars who will help bring the heartwarming story of The Little Prince to life on the big screen for the first time in more than 30 years.
A 3D- animated movie based on French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's popular novella is set to hit theaters in 2015, and its first international trailer, which is in the author's native language, was released this week and features Lily Allen's 2013 cover of Keane's 2004 ballad "Somewhere Only We Know."
Inspired by the personal experiences of the writer, a French air force pilot before and during World War II, the novella The Little Prince is about a stranded aviator who meets, befriends and bonds with an alien prince who fell to Earth on an asteroid. The boy's innocence, imagination and perspectives about life and love and hunger for knowledge and adventure inspire the man, as do his stories of meeting jaded, self-centered adults.
"Please, draw me a sheep," the prince is heard saying in the trailer.
The new film stars Mackenzie Foy, who played Renesmee in the Twilight films and also appears in Interstellar, as a little girl who keeps finding pages of the illustrated novella, which are literally coming to life, and meets an old man who lives near her house.
"I've always wanted to find someone to share my story with, but I think this world has become too grown-up," he says in French.
The film was directed by Kung Fu Panda's Mark Osborne. Bridges plays the Aviator, Kung Fu Panda star Riley Osborne plays the prince, Franco plays the fox, Del Toro plays the snake and French actress Marion Cotillard plays the rose. Other stars include Ricky Gervais, Paul Giamatti and Albert Brooks.
The Little Prince the novella was published in 1943, a year before Saint-Exupéry died in a plane crash during a mission. It is often assigned as required reading in schools abroad and remains one of the most popular children's books in the world. It was last adapted for the big screen in 1974.
Robin Williams' daughter Zelda Williams quoted a few lines from The Little Prince in her first public comments about her father's death, this past August.
"You—you alone will have the stars as no one else has them..." the book quotes the prince as saying. "In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night...You—only you—will have stars that can laugh."