The Twits is one of the most unadaptable children’s books ever written; how could you faithfully translate a story about an old couple bullying each other until their deaths into a family friendly blockbuster?
Phil Johnston, writer of Disney hits including Zootropolis and Ralph Breaks The Internet (which he also directed), has been given the task of adapting Roald Dahl’s novella – although he argues that it’s “inaccurate” to label this movie a straightforward adaptation.
“I’d say this movie is inspired by Dahl’s novel, but uses that story as a jumping off point to tell a story about the world today”, Johnston told Zavvi. “I’m immensely proud of the Disney movies I made, but there’s a part of my brain that’s darker and weirder that wouldn’t live comfortably there – all characters in Disney movies need to be redeemed in some way, and The Twits don’t have that, they just die what we assume is a terrible death, and I’ve always loved that!
“The narrative challenge was building a film around two characters who don’t have to change, but I realised that they were the perfect characters for the story I wanted to tell about the battle between hatred and empathy that we’re seeing in the world right now. If I could build a world around them, with characters who do go on a journey, then this could be a movie – I needed to explore this hatred and use this production as a form of therapy, so I would never become a hateful, rage-baited person in real life!”
Johnston was approached by Netflix several years ago, after the streaming giant acquired the rights to Dahl’s back catalogue, initially hiring him to make a full miniseries adapted from The Twits. It was a full circle moment for the director, who was initially inspired to become a filmmaker after watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as a kid.
“Dahl’s books and the adaptations were a singular influence in my upbringing, and I watched the Willy Wonka with Gene Wilder endlessly – I could rewrite the entire script for you right now without rewatching it. I Know Dahl didn’t like that adaptation, but it made me feel things no other film geared towards a younger audience had done before or since; it captured the spirit of his work, where the darkness in the story makes you feel as a kid like you shouldn’t be seeing this.
“It permeated my childhood, as the things I became interested in from there were anarchic, whether it was early Looney Tunes cartoons, or Monty Python and The Young Ones – I attribute all of those obsessions to Dahl.”
Whilst Johnston said the movie was only an “Anti-Disney” film subconsciously, the visual palette of his film was very deliberately designed to look nothing like your average animated movie.
“The book has the famous line that if ugly people have beautiful thoughts, they become beautiful people, which is a lovely sentiment that got me thinking about how to translate that to the style of animation. I didn’t want there to be anything traditionally beautiful in the world we were building, or the character designs and sets we created, but I wanted this world to feel gross in a way that was tactile, that would invite the audience to find beauty in the most unlikely of places.
“Whether that’s in an abandoned gas station, or the Twits’ house which probably smells of chicken grease and cigarettes, I wanted people to find unexpected joy at being immersed in these places. I wanted the characters in this world to feel like you could reach out and squish them, without being stop motion – a tactile world you’d be surprised you want to spend time in.”
Johnston’s screenplay, co-written with Meg Favreau, adds two child protagonists to the story; orphans Beesha (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, of Netflix series Never Have I Ever), and Bubsy (newcomer Ryan Lopez), who fall afoul of the Twits after freeing the poor creatures they kept caged in their backyard.
“For a while, as I was thinking about how to adapt this story, I was considering telling a love story between the Twits and how they met – but I’ve also been fascinated with the idea of how kids live in the world today, with the terror and meanness all around us and on social media, and how they navigate this. I realised it was important for this story to see kids at the centre, experiencing this complexity in life, whilst also walking the tonal tight rope of balancing this with very low brow humour.
“My hope is that the emotions feel real, and the laughs feel well-earned, and one doesn’t balance the other out.”
The director is bracing himself for backlash for relocating this story to America, although he argues that the source material is “spiritually American” - one infamous chapter sees the Twits going out to buy guns, after all. However, his Mr. Twit is still English, voiced by the unmistakable Johnny Vegas.
“Johnny was the first person I thought of for Mr. Twit, as I’d known him for a while. I worked on a not very good movie about a decade ago called Grimsby with Sacha Baron Cohen, which he played a small part in, and I became absolutely fascinated with him and this pure anarchy of his spirit.
“I knew I made the right call when I asked him to audition over Zoom and he yelled so loud that the mic distorted – I missed most of what he was saying because he was screaming so loudly! I knew he would be perfect next to Margot Martindale as Mrs. Twit, their voices on these two separate extreme levels, which alongside their character designs, really emphasises their eternal conflict and the hatred they have for each other.
“Plus, when you look at the rest of the voice cast, you see that I've given the world what it’s been waiting for: a movie that features both Johnny Vegas and Natalie Portman!”
The other unexpected name in the credits is David Byrne, who has swapped Talking Heads for Bickering Twits by writing original music for the soundtrack. Surprisingly, he was one of the few names who was involved with the project when it was still being developed as a miniseries.
“There was originally going to be a musical episode in that series where the Twits had a hallucination that they were good and kind, and as my musical hero since I was a teenager, I wrote a letter inviting him to collaborate and explain what his music meant to me. His art has always looked at America’s place in the world, and the small, unsung heroes and their place in larger society, and that philosophy was a perfect fit for this.
“We hit it off very fast, and working with him has been a singular joy. He’s as funny and weird as you’d hope he would be, and working with him has been the rare case where not only is it great to meet your heroes, but spending time with them absolutely exceeds your expectations.”
Now that his take on The Twits is about to arrive in the world, Johnston is only just beginning to realise what he’s been allowed to get away with, in contrast to the conventional family animations he made with the Mouse House.
“It’s only just occurring to me that this is a “weird” movie, which didn’t occur to me when I was in the midst of it. I love that this won’t be for everyone, but I feel lucky to have been given the chance to have expressed these thoughts and feelings, and I think it has changed the way I will approach whatever comes next.
“Someone described it as a “fever dream with a heart”, and I’m beyond happy that I had a chance to make something that could be described like that!”
The Twits streams on Netflix from Friday, 17th October.
