![\"Forgotten](\"https:\/\/www.animationscoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Forgotten_Island-Jeep.jpg\" "\\"'Forgotten")
For DreamWorks directors and best friends Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish<\/em>),\u00a0Forgotten Island<\/em>\u00a0offered an opportunity to make an original movie that was a wildly imaginative love letter to their shared Filipino culture and mythology.<\/p>\n Through Jo (H.E.R.) and Raissa (Liza Soberano), Crawford and Mercado fashioned a fantasy comedy about friendship, memory, and nostalgia. And that friendship is tested the the night before Raissa leaves the Philippines to attend Caltech. That\u2019s when Jo discovers a magical portal to\u00a0Nakali,\u00a0the titular island filled with supernatural creatures that has stirred their childhoods.<\/p>\n Supercharging the 2D-like graphic and painterly aesthetic of\u00a0The Last Wish<\/em>, Crawford and Mercado created two distinct worlds: the warm and colorful \u201990s-era Philippines and the fantastical, dream-like Nakali. This was defined particularly by Filipino touches, black-light photography, and vivid bursts of cyan and magenta.<\/p>\n Indeed, Nakali seems like a surreal fever dream. \u201cI think especially being able to do a little bit of\u00a0Wizard of Oz<\/em>\u00a0inspired this magical world of Nakali,\u201d Crawford explained. \u201cWe were pulling from multiple loves that we have of the \u201990s aesthetic with these bright, saturated colors, a lot of Filipino artwork in terms of pattern, tribal marking.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet the mythology of Nakali was tricky. There were seven moons and a stylized sun to contend with. \u201cThe lighting is not based on science but is based on magic,\u201d Mercado said. \u201cAnd I think especially in any movie where we\u2019re taking the audience on a journey: visually, sonically, the whole thing should feel like this roller coaster ride.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was important to us in the first act to show the sandbox that we\u2019re playing in so that nothing comes out of nowhere,\u201d added Mercado. \u201cAnd, in a way, these moments early in the film that are little teases of turned up anime moments, stylized painterly moments, pay off in a bigger way later on.\u201d<\/p>\n Building on the tech used for\u00a0The Last Wish<\/em>,\u00a0The Bad Guys<\/em>, and\u00a0The Wild Robot<\/em>,\u00a0Forgotten Island<\/em>\u00a0benefited from new DreamWorks advancements. \u201cEspecially with the cinematography and just pushing the lensing with our head of cinematography layout, Sean Cullen, and our animation team led by Sean Sexton,\u201d Mercado continued. \u201cThe way that they pose the characters work hand in hand with these anamorphic ultra wide lenses that we wanted to take further into our movie just to give a bigger breadth of scope, not only in the fantasy world, but even in these intimate moments between friends in the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n When it came to populating Nakali with its mythological creatures, DreamWorks reached new animated heights. The highlights include the tree-dwelling Batiba (Jenny Slate), the weredog Raww (Dave Franco), the giant baby demon Bungi (Manny Jacinto), the blue merman Prince Mermahn (Kevin McCann), and the vampire-like Manang (Lea Salonga).<\/p>\n The latter, whose torso separates from its legs and whose wings get stolen by\u00a0Raissa,\u00a0required\u00a0nearly 10,000 rigging controls. \u201cManang is essentially two characters by splitting in half, \u201c\u00a0Crawford explained. \u201c In her movements, there\u2019s this surfacing that\u2019s like obsidian rock, which is hard and stiff, and then there\u2019s serpentine soft movements. So the rigging of that model is more complex than anything we\u2019ve done before. And then the wings were another layer of complexity that we actually didn\u2019t find out until really late in production. We were just seeing this beautiful animation [and all the rest]. It was just so many points of articulation. They\u2019re like different digits and kind of ribbony, so it\u2019s even more complex with how they move.<\/p>\n With Raww, DreamWorks used three different models (a human, a canine, and the weredog) at the same time with a variety of limbs and finding ways to hide them. \u201cThey actually pioneered this on\u00a0Kung Fu Panda 4\u00a0<\/em>with the chameleon,\u201d Mercado offered. \u201cYou feel so supportive that someone\u2019s going to figure it out, and they always do.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, there are three 2D flashbacks narrated by Raww, Bungi, and Prince Mermahn explaining what happened when Jo and\u00a0\u00a0Raissa first arrived on Nakali. These were animated by Manila-based Snipple Animation.<\/p>\n \u201cSnipple matched our crazy genius with their energy and talent,\u201d\u00a0Crawford said. \u201cIn each flashback, it was important to us that it felt like the character who was telling it , and that it was inspired by \u201990s anime. So for Raww, the touchstones were\u00a0Street Fighter<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Dragon Ball Z<\/em>. It\u2019s pretty obvious because of just how over the top it\u2019s being told by Raww\u2019s personality.<\/p>\n \u201cWith Bungi,\u201d Crawford continued, \u201che\u2019s actually not in his flashback because he was the one doing the tapestry pictures. Everything needed to be rounded lines and feel soft, and there\u2019s this anime,\u00a0Crayon Shin-Chan<\/em>, that\u2019s like this. And Prince Mermahn, of course, being narcissistic, this glamorous point of view was inspired by Sailor Moon, heart-shaped lens layers, Vaseline on the lens, and sparkles.\u201dYet there was one happy accident with the Raww flashbacks that Crawford pointed out. \u201cThere\u2019s one thing that I just love with Raww being an unreliable narrator. He easily gets confused in his story, so when he\u2019s doing voice-over, he\u2019s not speaking on screen. Except for one shot. The animator had done lip sync with him and he\u2019s just standing there and he\u2019s talking. And when we met with Snipple, they told us that they made a mistake. But when we saw it, we were blown away by all the work that went into that and how beautifully the animator did the lip sync. This felt right for Raww being inconsistent, so we kept that happy accident in the movie.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Forgotten](\"https:\/\/www.animationscoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Forgotten-Island-pals.jpg\" "\\"'Forgotten")
![\"Forgotten](\"https:\/\/www.animationscoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Forgotten-Island-cast-900.jpg\" "\\"'Forgotten")