‘Sleep’ Producer Gullane Sets Sequel to Animated ‘Noah’s Ark’ (EXCLUSIVE)

São Paulo-based production company Gullane, which is behind the upcoming Netflix series “Senna,” has begun work on a sequel to its animated film “Noah’s Ark.”

Produced by Gullane and Videofilmes Walter Salles, “Noah’s Ark” was sold to 45 countries by Edward Noeltner’s CMG Management. It grossed $4.25 million in the territories where it was released.

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Imagem Filmes will show “Noah’s Ark” in Brazil on more than 1,000 screens, a huge number in a country with 3,300 screens. Rodrigo Santoro, Alice Braga and Julio Andrade star in a star-studded Brazilian cast. It looks like the biggest premiere of a Brazilian film in Brazil, said Fabiano Gullane Diversity from Toronto, where the company had the world premiere of Fernando Coimbra’s film “Carnival is Over”.

“Noah’s Ark” was inspired by the classic children’s songs by bossa nova pioneer Vinicius de Moraes. The 3D animated film centers on two male mice, Vini and Tito, who sneak onto Noah’s Ark despite having seats reserved for only one male and one female of each species.

The sequel will continue the story of Vini and Tito and the mouse Nina, as well as other animals from the ark, once they land on dry land. Sergio Machado, co-director of the original with Alois Di Leo, is currently writing the script for the sequel. Gullane is also planning a TV series based on the same characters, “but a bit simplified and maybe in 2D,” Fabiano Gullane said.

France’s Le Pacte, Spain’s Beta Fiction and Spanish-speaking Latin America’s IDC are counting on the film’s original distributors. The main territories available for sale are the US, Canada, the UK, Germany and Japan.

Produced by Fabiano and Caio Gullane and directed by Vicente Amorim, whose credits include Good, starring Viggo Mortensen, and Yakuza Princess, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Senna is produced in collaboration with Senna’s family. The eight-part fictional miniseries explores Senna’s personality and personal relationships, from moving to the UK in 1981 to race for a Formula Ford team to becoming the youngest three-time Formula One champion and his memorable 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.

Netflix will release the six-episode “Senna” worldwide on November 29.

It’s the busiest month in Gullane’s history, with 66 feature films including everything from Lais Bodanzky’s first feature, 2001’s Brainstorm, which introduced Rodrigo Santoro, to Hector Babenco’s Oscar-nominated Carandiru, Fernando Coimbra’s The Wolf at the Door, hailed as one of the most promising debuts of the decade, to 2015 Sundance winner The Other Mother and 2024 Cannes competition entrant Karim Aïnouz’s Motel Destino.

“Carnival is Over,” Coimbra’s second Brazilian feature, is Gullane’s seventh Toronto feature. Sold by French network Playtime, it’s a fitting transfer of “Macbeth’s” themes of overweening ambition and self-destructive vortex of violence to the tropical context of Rio de Janeiro, its carnivals and the illegal gambling mafia, the jogo de bicho.

Leandra Leal, who won the best actress award at the Rio de Janeiro Film Festival for her leading role in “A Wolf at a Door,” plays Regina, who drives her husband Valerio (Irandhir Santos) to murder his uncle, a plan that is supposed to provide a quick exit from the Mafia’s silence, but only sinks the couple deeper.

“Fernando is one of Brazil’s best writers and directors,” said Caio Gullane. “It’s a powerful film, made in the style of Fernando as a thriller, but it’s about Brazilian politics and, above all, family relationships.”

“The Carnival is Over,” produced by Gullane and Portuguese production company Fado Filmes, is a co-production between Globo Filmes, Telecine, Pavuna Pictures, TC Filmes, Playtime and Paris Filmes, which will release the film in Brazilian cinemas on November 21 after opening the main competition at the Rio festival’s Premiere Brazil.

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