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In 2016, Peter Brown wrote and published the wildly successful book, “The Wild Robot.” Upon its release, “The Wild Robot” was named Best Children’s Book of the Year by Publisher’s Weekly and New York Times Public Liberty, and today, has gone on to publish over 4 million copies in 26 countries. On Friday, Sept. 27, DreamWorks and highly praised animated movie director, Chris Sanders, turned Brown’s masterpiece into a critically acclaimed animated film which left people in theaters filled with emotion. 

In his over 40 year career, Chris Sanders has gone on to produce many successful animated movies, including “Lilo & Stitch,” “How To Train Your Dragon” and “The Croods.” The cast of “The Wild Robot” is filled with well-known actors such as Lupita Nyong’o as Roz, the main character of the movie, Pedro Pascal as Fink, Kit Connor as Brightbill, Bill Nighy as Longneck, Mark Hamil as Thorn and Ving Rhames as Thunderbolt.

The plot of “The Wild Robot” features an advanced, intelligent robot, ROZZUM unit 7134, who goes by the name of Roz. Roz and the rest of the ROZZUM robots in her unit were on a cargo ship when a bad storm hit, causing the unit to be lost at sea. The crate that held the unit ended up crashing into the rocky shore of an uninhabited island, causing all the robots to be destroyed except for Roz. This results in Roz being forced to adapt to the environment around her by bonding with and trying to become friends with the animals. In order to follow her programming, Roz makes an effort to help all the animals with tasks that they need help with. One day, Roz comes across a goose egg that no longer has a mother to be taken care of. Knowing that the gosling, Brightbill, will die if it does not learn to eat, swim and fly by fall, Roz’s new task is to become a mother.

“The Wild Robot” had a fantastic opening weekend at the box office, collecting around $36 million domestically across almost 4,000 theaters. Furthermore, people have found “The Wild Robot” to be a very enjoyable film, receiving great feedback from critics with an 8.5 out of 10 rating on IMDb and a whopping 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. 

Many older viewers left theaters feeling plenty of emotion after seeing the beautiful connection of mother and son, while younger viewers that likely read and enjoyed the book were left pleased with the accuracy of the movie. Fans cannot wait for sequels such as “The Wild Robot Escapes,” and “The Wild Robot Protects,” all written by Peter Brown that take place after the events of “The Wild Robot.” Thanks to the success of the film, Deadline reported that a sequel to the film is currently in development.