Netflix to Produce ESCAPE FROM HAT from Academy Award Nominated Mark Osborne

Netflix today announced that it will produce the animated feature film, Escape From Hat, from two time Academy Award nominated director Mark Osborne (Kung Fu Panda, The Little Prince) together with writer Adam Kline (Artemis Fowl, The Clockwork War). Production will commence this month in New York.

Escape From Hat joins Netflix's growing slate of original animated event programming designed for kids and families around the world. Osborne will direct and produce with Jinko Gotoh, who worked with Osborne on the critically-acclaimed feature The Little Prince and serves as producer on the 2019 Netflix animated feature film Klaus, from director Sergio Pablos. The screenplay is by Adam Kline and Osborne, based on the book of the same name by Kline, a new middle-grade novel that will be published by HarperCollins in Winter 2020.

Escape From Hat brings light to the ancient mysteries of magic. In a fairy tale where black cats are bad and magic rabbits are good, balance is threatened when one such rabbit is cast into a mysterious realm of danger and shadow. There, our desperate hero rallies an unexpected band of allies and undertakes an impossible quest to escape from inside a magician's hat - and return to the human boy he dearly loves.

"Escape From Hat tells a story about friendship and magic, which perfectly mirrors how I feel about getting to reunite with my friend Mark at Netflix after ten years," said Melissa Cobb, vice president of kids & family at Netflix. "I cannot wait for audiences around the world to immerse themselves in our fantastical magic trick gone awry, where they will find an epic and imaginative world of good versus evil."

"Netflix is shaking up the animated feature world in highly inventive ways, including offering filmmakers the rare opportunity to turn their dream project into a reality," commented Osborne. "I'm thrilled that Escape From Hat is now one of them."

"Creative people are the luckiest people on the planet," added Gotoh. "I'm thrilled to reunite with Mark, Adam, Melissa, and the entire team at Netflix."

"Every original screenplay needs a little magic," said Kline. "This one has it on pretty much every page."

Netflix expects the film to be released in 2022.