Nimona’s first Netflix teaser goes all-in on mocking Disney

It’s been a long road to the screen for Nimona, the animated adaptation of ND Stevenson’s webcomic-turned-graphic novel about a wronged knight in a wild sci-fi techno-future, and the shape-changing girl who declares herself to be his sidekick. The movie was originally in production at Blue Sky Studios (home of the Ice Age movies), and it was months from completion when Disney — which had acquired Blue Sky’s parent company, 20th Century Fox — cancelled the project. (A Blue Sky employee told Business Insider last year that Disney “systematically censors queer content,” implying the film was shut down because it features a gay couple as two of its leads.)

Netflix released its first teaser in the spring of 2022, announcing that they would be completing the film. This early look only features a small amount of actual animation from the film — mostly, it’s a jaunty framing story where that shape-changing girl, Nimona (voiced by Chloë Grace Moretz), draws herself into a Disney-style classic fairy tale in order to mock it — and set a Disney princess type and her entire castle on fire. The whole thing comes with the kind of stylized, fast-moving, “teen artist playing with style and self-insertion” flavor as Netflix’s previous animated movie The Mitchells and the Machines.

The final teaser offers a brief glimpse at the Nimona Nimona, the main character, transforms into animals such as a whale or gorilla. If you don’t blink, you’ll get a quick look at the graphic novel’s hero, Ballister Blackheart — here renamed Ballister Boldheart — in the middle of a chaotic fight.

Here’s Netflix’s description of the movie:

A Knight (Riz Ahmed) is framed for a crime he didn’t commit and the only person who can help him prove his innocence is Nimona (Chloë Grace Moretz), a shape-shifting teen who might also be a monster he’s sworn to kill. The story takes place in an alternate techno-medieval realm, unlike anything ever seen before. It is about how we label people and a shapeshifter that refuses to accept any labels.

NimonaThe film will be screened at the Annecy Animation Festival in mid-June and will appear on Netflix by June 30.