Deltarune

Deltarune is a 2036 live action/computer animated comedy drama fantasy adventure film, which is based on the original game by Toby Fox, which serves as a soft reboot to the Undertale film series. Directed by Dan Trachtenberg, and written by Christopher L. Yost, Josh Friedman, and Rebecca Hall, based off a story by Yost and Matt Braly, it stars Timothee Chalamet, Hailee Steinfeld, Barry Keoghan, Ike Barinholtz, Dove Cameron, Andy Samberg, Michael Shannon, Rhys Ifans, Christian Bale, Yahya Abdul Mateen II, and Jacob Elordi. Although some characters from the original movies appear in this movie, the film is still considered a reboot according to Fox.

The film is set in an alternate universe where the human and monster war never happened, the film's story follows a human named Kris and a monster named Susie as they fall into another world full of people called Darkners where they are accompanied by Ralsei, a prince of the dark, Noelle, a classmate of Kris and Susie, and Lancer, a jester who is the son of an abusive king, who must stop the evil of this land, which seeps into their world.

The film grossed $412 million at the box office and gained mostly positive reviews from critics and fans of the original game, who praised the cast, writing, direction, and more.

Plot
The movie begins the story as Kris, a human child living in a village mostly made up of monster residents, with their adoptive mother Toriel, who is also a monster. Toriel drops Kris off at school, where Kris attends a class taught by Alphys. Kris and Susie, a delinquent monster classmate, are sent to get chalk for the blackboard. Upon entering the supply closet, both of them are pulled into the "Dark World". There, they meet Ralsei, a prince of the dark, who tells them that the three of them are heroes destined to close the Dark Fountain (a geyser of dark energy) to restore balance to that world. However, the King has seized control of the Dark World and is determined to spread darkness.

Susie chooses not to help, only wanting to return to her own world. Before she can leave, the three encounter the King's son Lancer, who tries to stop them from proceeding with various poorly thought-out plans. Susie eventually decides to join Lancer, leaving Kris and Ralsei on their own. As Kris and Ralsei make their way to the King's castle, Susie befriends Lancer, and the four ultimately become a team. Upon realizing that they will have to confront the King, Lancer runs off to the castle and arranges for the King's henchmen to throw Kris, Ralsei, and Susie into the dungeon.

Susie escapes the dungeon and confronts Lancer, who explains he wanted to keep Susie and the King from hurting each other. Susie promises Lancer she won't hurt the King. Kris, Susie and Ralsei go to the top of the castle and confront the King in battle. Eventually, the King falls to the ground in exhaustion and Ralsei takes pity on him, healing the King. However, this is revealed to be a ruse as the King quickly incapacitates the three heroes, threatening to kill them all. As the King tries to decapitate Kris' head, Lancer barges in and overthrows the king, saving the day.

Kris closes the Dark Fountain so that they can return to their own world. There, Susie says goodbye, expressing interest in returning to the Dark World. The player can explore the town before having Kris go home to bed. That night, Kris shakes in bed, then falls on the floor and limps to the center of the room. Kris tears into their chest and rips out their heart-shaped SOUL, throwing it into a birdcage in the corner of the room. The player can move the SOUL around inside the birdcage but cannot do anything else. Kris draws a knife and turns toward the viewer. They smile, with their right eye flashing red.

Light World

 * Timothee Chalamet as Kris-
 * Hailee Steinfeld as Susie-
 * Dove Cameron as Noelle-
 * Andy Samberg as Berdly-
 * Justin Felbinger as Monster Kid-
 * Tiffany Haddish as Catti-
 * Steve Carell as Jockington-
 * David Cross as Snowy-
 * Charlene Yi as Temmie-
 * Jacob Elordi as Asriel-
 * Jessica Chastain as Toriel-
 * Idris Elba as Asgore-
 * Stephanie Beatriz as Alphys-
 * Kimiko Glenn as Myra-
 * Zach Woods as Rudy/Rudolph-

Dark World

 * Barry Keoghan as Ralsei-
 * Ike Barinholtz as Lancer-
 * Michael Shannon as King-
 * Rhys Ifans as Rouxls Kaard-
 * Christian Bale as Jevil-
 * Yahya Abdul Mateen II as Seam-
 * Matthew Rhys as the King of Diamonds-
 * Keira Knightley as the Queen of Hearts-
 * Rita Ora as the Queen of Clubs-
 * Olivia Colman as Clover-

Plans for a sequel
On February 4, 2032, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the co-producer of the Undertale film series, said at the San Diego Comic Con said they had thoughts of adapting Toby Fox's sister game Deltarune, which had served as the "spiritual successor" to Undertale. Lord and Miller said to The Verge that the film would be a bit darker than the previous installments and also will be having full animated sequences, due to the nature of the game being edgier than Undertale. However, after the release of Undertale: Beyond the Void, Lord and his partner Christopher Miller said they had no intention of returning to the series, since so much can be done which a game like Undertale. James Wan and Mary Parent also agreed to have no intention of coming back. Soon after, Sony Pictures executive Matt Tolmach said in an interview with Collider that there were plans for another sequel, but they felt it was jumping the shark. Tolmach said:

"...we would've had Frisk and Leon all grown up and travel to the multiverse with the help of a version of Sans called Ink Sans. The film would've used several "Sanses" based on the ones people have made (for example Underfell and Underswap). Unfortunately, this did not work out for us.""

Thomas Tull, co-founder of Legendary Pictures, said they commissioned writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns to make a 4th 2-part Undertale movie called: Undertale: The Last Soul. In it, Frisk fights the soul of fear named Bettina Noire, who had come back since the Elder Mages' magic was destroyed. It would've been the definitive ending to the series and have all the characters killed off, except for Chara (who had brought back by Frisk), Asriel, Papyrus, Toriel, and Undyne. In summer of 2028, Alex Garland was attached to direct, with additional rewrites by Michael Waldron and Ehren Kruger. This was cancelled due to budgetary constraints and negative reactions to the public.

Development
In March 2023, rumors were appearing that Netflix was looking to reboot the series with Wan coming back to produce. Fox, at first, denied these claims, since he had never heard that they had plans for a new film. More details revealed that this new movie was going to adapt Deltarune, Undertale's "sequel" and it would star Ansel Elgort. 5 months later, in August, Netflix confirmed these rumors on Deadline, with Atlas Entertainment now producing alongside Jake Gyllenhaal's company, Nine Stories, and it would be a live action movie with animated segments in it. James Wan would also help out on the film.

Finding a director proved to be difficult. Andy Serkis wanted to direct the film, but his vision clashed with the ones at Netflix, so he changed his mind. Jonathan Liebesman was in talks to helm the project, but scheduling conflicts made him unable to proceed further. Other directors included Miguel Sapochnik, Robert Eggers, Barry Jenkins, Taika Waititi, Joseph Kosinski, Chris McKay, Gore Verbinski, and Adam Wingard. Finally, after a long search, Dan Tractenberg was hired.

Animation directors were easier, however, as they got both Joaquim Dos Santos, the creator of Voltron: Legendary Defender and the director of Spider Man: Across the Spiderverse and Madeline Sharafian, the director of the Pixar Sparkshorts movie, Burrow. At one point, Vivienne Medrano was also considered.

Writing
By March 19, Matt Braly, an animator and writer who is best known for making Amphibia, were in talks to write the script. Braly envisioned it as more of a comedy than a straightforward fantasy adventure, so he used a lot of his signature writing in the rough draft. The script would've also included Gaster and Sans but was scrapped. Christopher L. Yost came in to add more story, like clues about Kris' backstory, the romance between Susie and Noelle, and talks of another knight. On June 8, Rebecca Hall was hired for one more rewrite, changing things up about the main characters and Ralsei, and Josh Friedman combined all these ideas together into a script that the producers and director liked.

Casting
Timothee Chalamet was cast as Kris in July, along with Jacob Elordi as Asriel in November 24. A month later, Ike Barinholtz and Michael Shannon joined the cast as both Lancer and King. On January 2024, it was announced that Hailee Steinfeld and Rhys Ifans had been cast for Susie and Rouls Kaard, respectively. It was also announced that Matthew Rhys, Keira Knightley, and Rita Ora, would be playing the King of Diamonds, the Queen of Hearts, and the Queen of Spades.

On April 4 2034, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed more casting, including Barry Keoghan playing Ralsei, Yahul Abdul Mateen II as Seam, Christian Bale as Jevil, and Andy Samberg as Berdly. A month later, more actors from the first and second movies, like Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba would be reprising their roles for the movie. Kimiko Glenn as Myra, a new character Matt Braly wrote into the script for a contest, and Olivia Rodrigo as Noelle was announced later on, as well as Olivia Colman as a respective cameo.

Filming and animation
Filming began to take place in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in May 28, especially in the Point Grey Secondary School for the school in the movie. It switched to Los Angeles later on for Kris' house. Filming wrapped up on November 3. Unlike the previous movies, Blur Studio, who did all the animation for the movie, wasn't involved, although Tim Miller stayed as an executive producer. Instead, the animation was split into two groups: MPC Films, who did the animation for Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, The Lion King, and the Godzilla movies, and Titmouse, Inc. MPC did all the live action sequences for the film, with Joel MacDonald and Laura Muro Javaloyes supervising it. Titmouse, however, was to create all the animated sequences with its founder Chris Prynoski leading it. Concept artist Guillaume Singelin drew some character designs resembling that of Steven Universe.

Music
The music was provided by Thomas Newman. Having being a fan of movies like WALL-E and 1917, he hired him for the composer.

Theatrical
The film had it's debut at the Sundance Film Festival, where it received somewhat mixed responses from fans. While people praised it's mix of 2D and 3D animation, others found it's story lackluster, and, at times, a bit clunky. Netflix head Ted Sarandos said "That's just the setback of this movie. You don't know what you'll get."

Reception
(coming soon)

TV show
After two months after the movie premiered, Netflix announced a sequel series called Deltarune: New Beginnings. It would be developed by Matt Braly and Josh Friedman, two of the original writers of the movie. Dan Tractenberg and Madeline Sharafian would also be directing the series, both in live action and animation. The series premiered in 2037.

Possible spin off film
(coming soon)

Trivia
Nick Robinson, Hailee Steinfeld, Elijah Wood, Michael Cera, Giancarlo Esposito, Brenda Song, Josh Dallas, and Luke Grimes were considered for roles at one point.