Skyscraper – an animated adventure for the whole family

New York, New York.

Pitch: Family fare à la Don Bluth. An American Tail meets Finding Nemo in the Art Deco style of the 1930s.

Synopsis: New York, 1930. Skyscrapers reach for the heavens, and a squirrel family in Central Park adopts an abandoned baby harrier named Scrap. They don’t realize that Scrap will turn their lives upside down. When a twist of fate separates Scrap and his brother Skip from their mother, Scrap must face his fears, navigate the big city, and learn to fly to reunite his family.

Skyscraper is an animated adventure for the whole family, filled with suspense, humor, and even fascist guinea pigs.

The screenplay for Skyscraper received an 8/10 rating on the online version of The Black List, with comments like:

  • “Universally funny – perfect for a family film.”
  • “It has the potential to be a great animated feature for family audiences worldwide.”

Skyscraper was also favorably reviewed by John August and Craig Mazin on their Scriptnotes Podcast.

The Journey: We began working on Skyscraper a few years ago, inspired by the idea of writing a feature-length screenplay. Animation felt like a natural fit. The basic premise of Skyscraper—a squirrel family adopting a baby harrier—remained constant, but as we refined the plot and characters, we discovered what the story was truly about.

In 2012, we were happy enough with the project to share it with the world. We entered it into competitions and submitted it to The Black List, receiving great and encouraging feedback from producers. Over the past year, we’ve taken that feedback to heart, reworking Skyscraper into a “better than ever” 80-page version.

The script takes the reader on a fun ride filled with laughter and lots of heart. The theme of acceptance is carefully woven throughout as Scrap must come to terms with who he his and who he isn’t. The best aspect of the script by far is the wacky, yet sweet collection of characters. From Linus, the terrified Lizard, to Fluffy, the leader of the crazed guinea pigs, and even Piers, Scrap’s pseudo-sensei, each characters has its own unique voice and their role in the script has been carefully thought out. The entertaining and tense action scenes would have any kid and adult seating on the edge of their seat. Overall, this script would make for a great animated film. (…) The script definitely has a Madagascar vibe, and could potentially spawn a couple of sequels. It could absolutely attract A-list talent needed to secure its high budget.

This is an endearing script with a well-constructed plot and likeable characters. The humor is universally funny – perfect for a family film. The sequences in the second act are well thought out and keep the plot moving toward the action packed third act, with the library sequence featuring Piers being especially engaging. With a family friendly plot that’s funny for all ages, this seems like a script that could attract a wide, mainstream family audience as an animated film.

The current draft of Skyscraper is 73 pages long.

If you’re interested and would like to read Skyscraper, drop us a line, and we’ll be happy to send it your way.

We are currently in the process of sending Skyscraper out to production companies and are proud to share that Skyscraper was nominated for the German Animation Screenplay Award at the  ITFS 2018