Animated Sci-Fi Fantasy and Action-Packed Adventure
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Playing a ‘stitchpunk’ creation was fun because he’s someone who is trying to navigate a journey of discovery through a world, and he looks at everything through an innocent’s eyes.” – Elijah Wood
If you don’t yet know what “stitchpunks” are, you should. After all, the very future of civilization depends on them! At least, that’s the case in the post-apocalyptic world of Director Shane Acker’s animated
9—a feature-length expansion of his Academy Award-nominated 2004 short film of the same name. Stitchpunks are a small group of beings given life by a scientist in the final days before the decimation of the human population by the world’s machines. Taking refuge from malevolent creatures intent on their extinction, they are joined by number 9, a stitchpunk like them, but who displays leadership qualities lacking in the others that may help them survive.
Voicing the title character of 9 is LA89 IMTA alum Elijah Wood. “I was blown away by the short film, with its extraordinarily beautiful animation—of the kind you don’t come across often,” Wood says. “I met with Shane and found him to have a very clear vision of what he wants.” What—or rather who—Acker wanted was Wood. “For an actor who could play someone naïve yet unafraid to follow his instincts, and in so doing emerge as a leader, I knew I wanted Elijah,” says Acker. “He was a natural fit.”
9 also features the voices of Jennifer Connelly, John C. Reilly, Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau and Crispin Glover. Visionary filmmakers Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov produced the film.
Wood notes how gratifying it is working on the process of an animated movie. “Some of the best moments are when you see how things are coming together and how the character is coming to life.” About his character, he adds: “He is the innocent coming into a world in which he is faced with a quest…there is so much he has to figure out. He throws a wrench into a society that is already established...He asks the questions everyone is afraid to.”
Wood is currently lending his voice to another animated project,
The Legend of Spyro, a feature version of the successful series of video games—also voiced by Wood—about a young dragon battling evil forces in Dragon World. He is also in development as producer on
Black Wings Has My Angel, an adaptation of the 1953 Elliott Chaze novel, and is scheduled to star in
The Passenger, a biopic about singer Iggy Pop as a young man.