Norwegian filmmaker Tommy Wirkola‘s new movie is a bit similar to the Inside Out films about personified body substances. The difference is that it delves into the mature themes of sex and contraceptives. Wirkola’s new animated feature, Spermageddon, is, in fact, all about semen.
Tommy Wirkola gained recognition for horror comedies like the Dead Snow movies and, most recently, Violent Night. His latest live-action film will be a shark thriller starring Bridgerton’s Phoebe Dynevor. His animated feature Spermageddon has two awkward teens, Jens and Lisa, who decide to have sex for the first time. This puts Jens’ sperm, Simon the Semen, on a quest to find Lisa’s egg. The Violent Night filmmaker revealed the experience of giving the pitch to American studios and why Norway was a better route.
“The pitch was: Cannonball Run with sperm,” said Wirkola to The Hollywood Reporter. “I initially tried to get it set up in the U.S. and had a lot of fun meetings, with plenty of laughs, but every time it went up the ladder, there was an executive who said: ‘No, we’re not going to do that, we won’t go there.’ So I thought, let’s see if we can make it in Norway, where there are really no restrictions on what you can do, and nobody telling you that this is too much.”
Spermageddon had its Midnight Screening premiere at the Annecy Film Festival early in the week. One thing that’s important to know about the Norwegian film is that it isn’t a raunchy comedy like Sausage Party. Tommy Wirkola teamed up with Rasmus A. Sivertsen, who created the Norwegian kid-friendly franchise Louis & Luca. Therefore, Spermageddon intends to be a sweet story about two teens’ first sexual experience. The movie is actually aiming for a PG rating…in Scandinavia at least.
What else can we expect from Spermageddon?
Not only is Smergadeddon a heartwarming animated coming-of-age story, but it’s also a musical. Tommy Wirkola talks about whether he always intended his upcoming animated movie to have song-and-dance numbers:
“That wasn’t the original idea, but in the process of developing it with my writers [Geir Vegar Hoel and Jesper Sundnes] we came up with a few songs,” said the Dead Snow filmmaker. “I never had any desire to make a musical, but as we started playing around with it, it became a huge thing, and I embraced it. Now those are my favorite parts of the movie when they explode and sing and dance, the absurdity of the musical numbers and who’s doing the singing.”
One example of a catchy tune featured in the movie is when a gynecologist sings of glorifying family planning. Cheery songs depicting sexual topics may anger audiences in certain parts of the world.
Currently, Spermageddon is still looking for a U.S. distributor. With its unconventional themes finding its way into the animated flick, Tommy Wirkola admits his curiosity of the MPAA’s rating.
“I’m very curious what rating this will get in the U.S. Because I think it’s a cute story in many ways, but, at the same time, it goes places most films like this wouldn’t.”
