We’re one step closer to seeing little Marcel on the big screen. Per The Hollywood Reporter, A24 has acquired the North American rights to the Marcel the Shell With Shoes On movie, which is based on the popular YouTube stop-motion shorts by Dean Fleischer Camp and Jenny Slate. The film follows Marcel, a 1-inch shell who lives with his grandmother Connie and their pet lint, Alan. According to the logline, they once were part of a sprawling community of shells, but are now the “sole survivors of a mysterious tragedy.†After a documentary filmmaker (played by Camp) discovers them “amongst the clutter of his Airbnb, the short film he posts online brings Marcel millions of passionate fans, as well as unprecedented dangers and a new hope at finding his long-lost family.â€
Slate voices the main mollusk in a cast that also features Isabella Rossellini, Rosa Salazar, Thomas Mann, and Lesley Stahl. Camp directed the movie and wrote the screenplay with Slate and Nick Paley from a story by Camp, Slate, Paley, and Elisabeth Holm. While we still don’t have a release date, Marcel the Shell With Shoes On charmed audiences when it premiered at the 2021 Telluride Film Festival in September. Camp later shared on Instagram that the project had taken over six years of “tenacity and teamwork†to come to fruition, adding that that the world “maybe needs it now more than we could’ve known starting out.†After the past couple of years we’ve had, we definitely feel like we deserve something cute.