Kevin Lima Shares Art From His Cancelled Dreamworks Feature ‘Monkeys Of Mumbai’
Monkeys. Bollywood song-and-dance numbers. Mythological derring-do inspired by the Ramayana, the ancient Indian epic. What’s not to like?
This, in brief, is the premise of Monkeys of Mumbai, a musical animated project that was developed at Dreamworks Animation, then axed. The feature would have told the story of two orphaned monkey brothers, Raj and Deepu, who live a hardscrabble life on the streets of Mumbai — until a chance encounter plunges them into a magical world of adventure.
We know this because the film’s director, Kevin Lima, has spoken about the project since its cancellation in 2014. Lima, a veteran Disney director (A Goofy Movie, Tarzan, Enchanted), has spent the last few weeks publishing an array of artwork from the production on Twitter. These revelations build on comments he made about the film to Den of Geek in 2017.
After spending two and a half years in development, the project was on the brink of entering production when the studio shut it down. The key reason: the planned sale of Dreamworks to Comcast’s NBCUniversal, which went through in 2016. In Lima’s words, the project was “sabotaged” by Jeffrey Katzenberg, then CEO of Dreamworks. Cartoon Brew reported on its development a full nine years ago.
The director’s tweets celebrate those years of hard work, revealing previously unseen artwork alongside anecdotes about the project. We learn that Dreamworks’s marketing department “was always nervous that the Ramayana played such a crucial part” in the story, and that religious historians “were totally fine” with the film’s take on Indian culture, to Lima’s surprise.
We’ve reprinted choice artwork from Lima’s tweets below, as well as a snippet of a story reel containing animation by Dave Weatherly:
Here's some visual development by Ron Kurniawan for the Deepu Demon. #MonkeysofMumbai pic.twitter.com/8DOiDbBuuZ
— Kevin Lima (@GoofyMovieDir) May 22, 2020
Early on we did a lot of visual development exploring Raj and Deepu living a dangerous life on the crowded streets of Mumbai. All of this art is by the immensely talented Christian Schellewald. #MonkeysofMumbai pic.twitter.com/LJjww1Yhya
— Kevin Lima (@GoofyMovieDir) April 26, 2020
Exploration board for Raj's song, In Another Life. #MonkeysofMumbai pic.twitter.com/DMZFTXOWuN
— Kevin Lima (@GoofyMovieDir) May 7, 2020
Another rendition of Ravana's golden island of Lanka based on the lotus flower. Tang Kheng Heng was our production designer and did quite a lot of the development art on the film. #MonkeysofMumbai pic.twitter.com/CKwSCJ6Krm
— Kevin Lima (@GoofyMovieDir) May 15, 2020
Like all of the songs in MONKEYS OF MUMBAI, "I Am Hanuman" was written by the esteemed composer AR Rahman @arrahman and the phenomenal lyricist/composer Stephen Schwartz @composerstephen. #MonkeysofMumbai pic.twitter.com/5Ughz9pG0c
— Kevin Lima (@GoofyMovieDir) May 21, 2020
These Demons were one of the hi-lights of the film. Each was based on an Indian instrument and became Ravana's orchestra whenever he sang. This Demon is based on the dhol with giant drums for feet. #MonkeysofMumbai pic.twitter.com/EM8OR8gg91
— Kevin Lima (@GoofyMovieDir) May 16, 2020
Ron Kurniawan was our art director and did an array of stunning visual development pieces. I'm sure you can dig up more of his art from the film at https://t.co/t2vsNCAxuR #MonkeysofMumbai pic.twitter.com/4KGi6PzXVw
— Kevin Lima (@GoofyMovieDir) May 21, 2020
Over the next couple of days, I'll post a few pieces of development art. If you've been following along, you know that this is Deepu (voiced by @RohanChand), Pinky (@LeaMichele) and Raj (@AaronTJohnsns) #MonkeysofMumbai #leamichele #aarontaylorjohnson #RohanChand pic.twitter.com/q32cGPN0FD
— Kevin Lima (@GoofyMovieDir) May 22, 2020
Raj and Pinki join forces and set sail to rescue Deepu and Chandani from the clutches of Ravana. Art by Tang Kheng Heng #MonkeysofMumbai pic.twitter.com/IxfH1iLimW
— Kevin Lima (@GoofyMovieDir) May 15, 2020
Sorry, I was talking about a different scene. The one where he is summoned on set of a Bollywood production. The scene was partially animated but not finished and was mostly storyboarded. pic.twitter.com/xaeLzaqeAZ
— Ammart (@Dumpyman) May 19, 2020