‘Sing’ Trailer: Well, The Title Definitely Looks Accurate

I always knew, deep down, that if I did this job long enough, I’d eventually see a movie about anthropomorphized elephants and the music of Eminem.

That movie has arrived in the form of Sing, the latest animated feature from Illumination, the studio behind Despicable Me and The Secret Life of Pets. Their latest venture cannily capitalizes on people’s love of singing competition shows and cutesy talking animals by combining the two into a single film. Here’s the official synopsis:

Set in a world like ours but entirely inhabited by animals, Sing stars Buster Moon (Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey), a dapper Koala who presides over a once-grand theater that has fallen on hard times. Buster is an eternal optimist—okay, maybe a bit of a scoundrel—who loves his theater above all and will do anything to preserve it. Now facing the crumbling of his life’s ambition, he has one final chance to restore his fading jewel to its former glory by producing the world’s greatest singing competition.

The competitors in that competition include the voices of Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, Taron Egerton, and Scarlett Johansson. The official YouTube description also notes that Sing includes 85 songs, which is an absurd number for what I have to assume is a roughly 90-minute kids film. Gotta keep those kids’ attention somehow. It is worth noting that Sing was written and directed by Garth Jennings, a talented filmmaker who previously made Son of Rambow. I’m curious to see what he does here. Sing opens in theaters on December 21.