No one expected the first Trolls sequel, Trolls World Tour, to be the movie that changed the film industry as we know it. Least of all, its director, Walt Dohrn.
Let’s dye our hair purple, tease it to the heavens, slap a jewel on our belly buttons, and take a trip down memory lane: It was April 2020, and nearly all cinemas in the country—as well as most public places—were closed as part of pandemic lockdown measures. That left Hollywood studios with billions of dollars of film titles to figure out what to do with.
Some movies were punted down the line until audiences could safely trek out (and pay money) to see them again. Universal took a gambit with Trolls World Tour. It became the first studio movie to skip theaters entirely and be released directly to consumers to rent at home.
Especially at a time when families were desperate for entertainment while trapped together at home, its success was inevitable. Other studios followed suit. Three years later, with the industry still grappling with their release strategies as the way we consume entertainment has undeniably changed, it’s plain to see just how consequential Trolls World Tour was and is.
“I was worried,” Dohrn tells The Daily Beast’s Obsessed. “I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to go down in history as the guy who destroyed the movie theater!’”
We’re speaking at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival, and amidst much less stressful circumstances. The third film in the Trolls franchise, Trolls Band Together, had just played to a packed screening at the festival, ahead of its release in theaters Nov. 17.
He’s game to talk about the surreality of that time, but he’s also glad that Trolls Band Together is making headlines for a much happier reason.
Boyband fans were ecstatic to learn that the Justin Timberlake, who voices the lead character of Branch in the franchise, reunited his NSYNC group mates for a special cameo and new song in the film, “Better Place”—their first in two decades. (Of course, our conversation took place earlier this fall, before the release of Britney Spears’ memoir tarnished a bit of that enthusiasm.)
While Trolls Band Together continues to chart the adorable, duet-filled relationship between Branch and Poppy (Anna Kendrick) at the center of the massive series—Dohrn estimates he’s rarely out in public without seeing Trolls merchandise somewhere—boybands provide the trilogy’s exciting new twist.
We learn that Branch used to be in a ’90s boyband with his long-lost brothers, who reunite when one of the siblings is kidnapped and used for his voice by a duo of talentless pop stars. References to the famous bands of the era—NSYNC among them—abound; there’s a particularly good joke about Timberlake’s hair. And that’s all before the actual members of NSYNC crash the final act for their cameo and song.
With Trolls Band Together out this weekend, we talked with Dohrn about pulling off the NSYNC reunion, his feelings about all the discourse surrounding Trolls 2’s pandemic release, and the key to picking music for a film like this.
Did you ever predict the longevity of this franchise?
It’s such a tricky world, the world of movies, and there’s so much out there. So you just never know. But while you’re working on it, you hope it will connect with the audience. And it’s nice that the audience decides if they want to see more. Because we always have lots of ideas for where this could go. I think even the idea for Trolls 3 really came about during Trolls 1, from producer Gina Shay.
Oh really? All the way back then?
She was like, “Let’s dive into Branch’s life.” Because you just get a peek at him in Trolls 1. You know that there was this family tree and that he has brothers. That’s about as far as we got with it. So we said, “Oh, it's finally time to tell that story.”
When did you unlock the idea that, beyond learning about Branch’s brothers, they’d be in a boyband?
That came in a little bit later. You know, after working with Justin for 10 years…
It’s been 10 years since you started working on Trolls?!
About that. Like about a decade of Trolls.
That’s really upsetting to hear.
(Laughs) Well, it’s fun. A side note is that the audience gets to grow up with a franchise. So you get to be more complex with the relationships, like with Branch and Poppy. And then in our relationship with Justin, too, and the returning cast. So we thought it would be really fun if he had brothers, and it's a secret. It’s been 20 years since they were together. That was a while ago. So we thought, what if they were in a band together? We started talking about family bands, like The Bee Gees and the Jacksons, all the way up to Billie Eilish and Finneas. This idea of blood harmony seemed really good.
Right, like it’s a musical superpower, harmonizing with your family, your blood.
Exactly. So they’re in a band, and it’s Justin… So we started talking about the boyband music of the ’90s—it really just gelled like that. Pretty early on in the process we were like, this could happen, so let’s see if Justin’s into it. Because if he’s not, if he didn’t want to delve into his past... But he has such a healthy attitude about it. Hey’s like, let’s celebrate it, and let’s poke fun at it a little bit.
Even before the NSYNC cameo of it all, which we’ll get to, there are a few references that definitely seem to be directly inspired by the group.
Really early on, when we just read the script together and recorded it, there were little boyband moments. He just embraced it right away. We had some joke early on, which I think is in the film, where we see that Branch used to have a certain hairstyle. It was kind of reminiscent of one that Justin had. He gave us the line, “It was an era!” So he really embraced the whole thing.
What do you think it is about including music in family films like this one and others that you’ve worked on, like the Shrek films, that really clicks with those audiences?
It doesn’t matter how old you are. I think the kids get something out of it, and adults get another thing out of it. You don’t even have to be in a family to go see the movie and have fun. It’s got all those decades of number one songs. We joke that it’s scientifically engineered to make you feel better.
I remember my little brother being like 7 years old and walking around singing “Hallelujah,” because he had heard it in Shrek.
I love that song. I worked on the Shrek films for 10 years, so I love the way they used music there. When I first came to Trolls 1 and heard that this was going to be a musical, I was thrilled. I love musical theater. I love music. At first, we did more traditional musical theater numbers. It was more like a Beauty and the Beast “Welcome to the Troll Village” kind of thing. It was fun, and we were kind of poking fun at it. But it just didn't feel as fresh. So the way Shrek used music—even the way Martin Scorsese was using music in the ’70s and the ’80s—it was so exciting to be able to take these cues and reinvent them.
It must be fun to choose the songs.
Picking the song, how we perform it, recording all of the cast on those giant medleys, the licensing… That’s another crazy thing, the licensing. But there is a playfulness to choosing the songs. In the latest one, I remember we were trying to look for a transition between one scene to another. It was kind of flat. What can we do? I was taking a shower getting ready to go to work. and I always play music in the shower. All of a sudden, Dolly Parton's “9 to 5” came on and I love that song. I came out like, “Guys, we’ve got to try this!” And we’ll just throw something in there.
Now you’re passing Dolly onto another generation.
It’s a way of keeping those things alive. It’s a time machine for us, who experienced it together. But then to become something like Shrek, where “I’m a Believer” became “the Shrek song!”—I had a little worry about that in Trolls 1 with “The Sound of Silence,” which was used in a really funny way. But when I hear, “It’s the Trolls song!” I'm like no, it’s Simon and Garfunkel!
I want to talk a bit about the last film, Trolls World Tour, which came out at the beginning of the pandemic and notoriously became the film that changed the industry. I’m sure the decision to skip theaters and the intense discourse were unexpected. What was the experience like to release the movie amidst all that attention and heated conversation?
There are two positive things. Like you said, we didn’t design the movie for that [kind of release]. I had just spent weeks and weeks mixing the music so that it feels like a concert [in a theater]. I know everyone has great systems at home. But it’s not that same communal experience. So I was worried, just technically, about some of our creative choices, because it’s all about getting immersed in these incredible worlds. So you want that big canvas.
That’s understandable.
But what it did was two interesting things. Number one was, it went out into the world when they really needed it. This is a movie that makes you feel good. Especially because it was the beginning of the pandemic, and we all needed a big blast of joy and fun. So that was an honor. And then I also think that more people saw it who wouldn’t have, and we got to ride on that success for this next film.
The reason I saw it was because of all the attention it was getting.
People opened up to the idea that this is a brand new movie, that they get to watch a full $100 million movie in their homes. They were excited about that, and I think they took advantage of it. We had a huge fan base after that. Those were positives. Because I was worried. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to go down in history as the guy who destroyed the movie theater!’
The stakes really did seem like they were that big at the time.
They were. And that was the conversation. But there’s nothing that can compare to the theater experience. It’s just this communal thing. You get to sit in a theater and laugh with people. And in the real emotional moments when people get quiet, you can feel them connected to it. The music is so big and bombastic and exciting. [Watching at home] can’t really compare with that theater experience. And now I’m happy to go, “Now you get to do both.”
Speaking of the franchise getting a lot of attention, did you have any idea that staging an animated reunion of NSYNC in a Trolls movie would end up being this big of a deal?
When the idea first came up, we were still making the film. We were showing it to people in its rough form, to the studio and to the crew. The idea of NSYNC came up as a natural thing. We had the boyband in there. We were exploring a lot of boyband music from the ’90s. So it felt like a real natural thing. But we didn’t really think about it that way. Because we have such a universe. “We're gonna build our own boy band.”
Right. Even before the NSYNC reveal, the movie assembles a boyband of Branch’s brothers voiced by the likes of Kid Cudi and Troye Sivan.
Who gets to do that? I think because of the way that last film was put out, everybody knows about Trolls now, so they were more willing to do it. Kid Cudi did promise me that he was going get a tattoo of his character. We'll see if he does. But it was fun to build a super band. And then I think at a certain time after working a couple of years with Justin on this, [the NSYNC idea] came literally toward the end. We still had to finish the film. I think Justin was having such a good time exploring that music and exploring music that inspired him. I think enough time has passed. And so one day he texted Gina Shay and said, “Hey, what do you think about bringing the guys back together?” As Gina says, our heads exploded.
Oh, it was Justin’s idea?
Yeah. It was such a gift to the movie. And it was so organic to our film and to the tone. It didn’t feel forced. It felt celebratory and a little silly and fun. I’m so excited that people like the idea of it, and they’re excited about it. It’ll bring them to the movie, so maybe they’ll discover all these other things that they didn't know that the movie has to offer.
The reunion certainly piqued the interest of a millennial audience, that’s for sure.
It’s been such a thrill to see that, talking to people like yourself and hearing people get excited. I was just on some live TV thing here, and the woman who was interviewing me was the biggest NSYNC fan in the entire world. She was beside herself with enjoyment. That’s the whole point of why I’m making these things. It’s sharing with people and feeling good. For 82 minutes, you can feel that good. You can have fun.
