Alicia Vikander, Jamie Dornan, Bill Nighy Join The Turning Door

Alicia Vikander (Firebrand, The Danish Girl), Jamie Dornan (Belfast), Jodie Turner-Smith (Tron: Ares), Bill Nighy (Living) and Gillian Anderson (Sex Education) have joined the voice cast of the upcoming family fantasy film The Turning Door.

Written and directed by filmmaker and VFX supervisor Nicholas Ashe Bateman (The Wanting Mare), the movie is being produced by Christine D’Souza Gelb of 2AM (Babygirl, Past Lives) with Bateman and Hunter Hall of Maere Studios (An Almost Christmas Story). Mister Smith Entertainment is handling international sales.

2AM is handling sales in North America.

In the film, young Ariadlyn escapes her bedtime and slips into her parents’ room, where she discovers an ornate wooden box that opens a door to a magical world called The Turning. To find her way back home and save her parents, who are frozen in the real world, Ariadlyn must seek out a sorceress and her crystal vial. Along the way, she encounters giants, whales, armies, shapeshifters and acrobatic monkeys.

The Turning Door marks Bateman’s second feature film, following the sci-fi fantasy The Wanting Mare in 2020. Bateman is the founder of Maere Studios, the VFX and animation studio known for designing effects for The Green Knight, Origin, Hocus Pocus 2, Peter Pan and Wendy and An Almost Christmas Story.

“The pictures, places and songs of The Turning Door have been with me since I was a child,” Bateman said. “Thematically, its world is a combination of the ones which have filled me with wonder since I was little: the Neverlands, Wonderlands and all those adventures in far-off fantasies. Technically, the film is the result of the past 15 years of trying to make stories—while developing the tools, the dreams and the incredible artists needed to pursue them. More than ever, it’s important to believe that independent animation made by passionate artists and a dream cast has a place in the world; entirely new cinematic experiences—made by people—without any generative AI.”

“Anyone with a heart and with an appreciation of the magic of filmmaking cannot help but fall in love with this film,” added David Garrett, CEO of Mister Smith Entertainment. “It has the makings of a classic for all audiences for all time.”