Starring the voices of Jake Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid, Jaboukie Young-White, Gabrielle Union, and Lucy Liu, it follows a legendary family of explorers, the Clades (Gyllenhaal, Quaid, Young-White, and Union), who must set aside their differences as they embark on a journey to a mysterious subterranean land inhabited by surreal lifeforms, in order to save the miracle plant Pando, which is their society's source of energy.
Strange World draws inspiration from pulp magazines, Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Fantastic Voyage (1966), Jurassic Park (1993) and King Kong (1933).
In Avalonia, a land surrounded by an endless wall of mountains, adventurers Jaeger Clade and his 15-year-old son Searcher brave the wilderness to explore new worlds.
One night, Callisto Mal, the president of Avalonia and one of Jaeger's former expedition teammates, shows up in her airship, the Venture, to inform the Clades that Pando is losing its power and asks Searcher to help find the cause.
Searcher follows him aboard a small flying vehicle, but as they are reconciling, they realize that they have passed through the mountains to the ocean beyond, where they see the eye of a giant turtle-like creature.
After Legend and Splat free the family, Searcher and Ethan head to the creature's heart to clear a path for the Reapers, while Meridian takes over the ship and convinces Callisto to help.
Additional voice cast for Strange World include Terri Douglas, Liza Del Mundo, Shondalia White, Melanie Minichino, Michael Ralph, Shane Sweet, Arthur Ortiz, and Matt Yang King.
His frequent creative partner Chris Williams also involved the project before leaving Disney in November 2018 to direct the Netflix Animation film The Sea Beast (2022).
Hall pondered the origins of a generational family with the concept of "environmental overtones", which was described as "Indiana Jones meets National Lampoon's Vacation".
Shortly after the announcement of Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) at the D23 Expo in August 2019, a major redone happened, with the creative leadership on the film were being swapped, while some cast members were replaced.
[b] Nguyen adds that filmmakers wanted to make sure that, at the end of the film, viewers "could go backward and — like watching The Sixth Sense — be able to track all those moments and go, 'They told us all along what this was, and only now have we realized we got that last puzzle piece.
[17] The land of Avalonia was given a "warm, nostalgic" color scheme to contrast with the titular strange world inside the creature, for which the filmmakers "avoided earth tones and leaned into reds and magentas."
Petrana Radulovic for Polygon felt it was "an homage to retro sci-fi flicks" and similar to Raya and the Last Dragon, it "definitely seems to lean more into the action than Disney's typical musical fantasies.
[3][42][43] In the United States and Canada, Strange World was released alongside Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery[44] and Devotion, as well as the wide expansions of The Fabelmans and Bones and All, and was initially projected to gross $30–40 million from 4,174 theaters over its five-day opening weekend.
The low box-office opening was attributed to negative word-of-mouth, large budget overall, the lack of movie theater attendance, the expectation of its streaming release on Disney+ as the result of COVID-19 pandemic, rocky company politics, conservative backlash over inclusion of gay characters, critical reviews, a vague and unremarkable premise, and lackluster marketing compared to other Disney animated films.
[c] Some analysts believe that then-Disney CEO Bob Chapek's decision to send Pixar's, Soul, Luca and Turning Red, straight to Disney+ so that Disney could focus on building its streaming service caused consumer confusion for families.
When Bob Iger returned as Disney CEO prior its release, the distribution division - which was formerly led by Kareem Daniel - was quickly dismantled.
The website's consensus reads: "Strange World is a Disney milestone in terms of representation – but as a storytelling experience, this dazzlingly animated adventure offers little audiences haven't already seen.
[49][60] Peter Debruge of Variety wrote "it's the characters as much as the environment that make this vibrant, Journey to the Center of the Earth-style adventure movie colorful and diverse in all the best ways.
Great as the people and places they explore may be, however, the relatively unimaginative story consigns this gorgeous toon to second-tier status ... instead of cracking the pantheon of Disney classics.
"[61] Lovia Gyarke of The Hollywood Reporter praised the visuals, writing it was "meticulously and wondrously rendered by the Strange World animators, who drew much of their inspiration from pulp magazines of the 30s and 40s.
"[63] Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote while the film is not in the same category as "Frozen, Zootopia and Encanto, it's a family-friendly fun fest with the expected ingredients of fast-paced action, ingenious visuals, terrific voice performances and, yes, some heaping spoonfuls of upbeat messaging about family ties, the importance of being true to oneself and how we should all take great measures to take care of not only each other but the world in which we live, no matter how STRANGE that world might be.
"[67] Jacob Stoller of Paste Magazine admitted that while the film "can be arresting—especially with its inventive setting and bulbous creatures—and its attempts at deconstructing the sweaty, macho-man ethos hawked by its inspiration are admirable.
But with muddled themes and slight characters, remnants of the old dime magazines coordinate to bring Strange World down on the wrong side of familiar.