In Your Dreams is your next big animation obsession from Netflix! And now fans can get a look into the new movie which takes Elliot and Stevie into the world of dreams as the two try to keep their parents together.
As part of the press roll out for the film, I was lucky enough to attend an early press day earlier this summer where I spoke with director Alex Woo about the inspiration for the film, more importantly the inspiration behind the names of Elliot and Stevie. Both of their parents are musicians so when it came to Stevie, I easily picked up that she was named for Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks. But Elliot was harder.
It wasn’t until the press day when Woo and company began talking about their connections back to the sci-fi/kid adventure movies of the 80s that it clicked. Which Woo pointed out was astute of me, especially with some of the other references the film has. So we spoke about what they went through when figuring out what from Woo’s own childhood loves they wanted to include in In Your Dreams.
“Elliot, ET was a huge influence. Even in that movie, it’s not at the forefront but Elliot’s parents are going through challenges,” Woo said. “There’s that phone call and she starts crying and then he calls her penis breath or something. He calls his brother penis breath. But yeah, that was a big source of inspiration and I love that character.”
Woo went on to talk about how Elliot was only part of it because Woo’s co-founder for Kuku Studios Stanley Moore had a son when they were coming up with the story. Moore’s son was named Elias and so Elliot is both a nod to ET as well as Moore’s son.
But there was one other nod that I thought I understood: Part of the dream world does sort of remind me of the Fortress of Solitude. Woo shared that wasn’t a direct reference to Superman but “Obviously that movie has been very influential.”
You can see the trailer for In Your Dreams here:
In Your Dreams hits Netflix on November 14!
(featured image: Netflix)
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