John Krasinski is following up on his acclaimed horror directing with a partly animated family film that aims to emulate the child-like wonder of past Steven Spielberg movies. Krasinski is currently working on IF, which stands for “Imaginary Friends.” IF has already compiled a list of impressive actors lending their voices to the fantasy comedy. Notably, for fans of The Office, the animated movie will be reuniting Krasinski with his former Dunder-Mifflin boss, Steve Carell. The movie has already assembled Krasinski’s wife, actress Emily Blunt, as well as Matt Damon, John Stewart, Maya Rudolph, Sam Rockwell, Sebastian Maniscalco, Christopher Meloni, Richard Jenkins, Awkwafina and Vince Vaughn.
Collider recently sat down with Krasinski as he promotes the fourth and final season of his hit action-spy series, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, which will be premiering on Prime Video on June 30. Krasinski discussed with Collider about his excitement to work with Ryan Reynolds, who he has cast as the (human) lead in IF. He adds that the movie is “extremely personal” to him. It is being described as “Amblin-like” and Krasinski wanted to make something wholesome and timeless in the vein of E.T. – The Extra-terrestrial.
Krasinski explains, “IF is a movie that I made for my kids because I don’t think they’re allowed to see A Quiet Place; Emily [Blunt] calls it PG-40, ‘You’ll get to see it when you’re 40!’ So I had to make a movie that they could see, and I’m really, really excited about it. I mean, Ryan Reynolds is as good as it gets in every single way, shape and form, and this incredible phenom of an actress, Cailey Fleming, is in the movie. For me, it was just about what if we could tell a story about these time capsules? Imaginary friends are adorable and all those things, but they’re also time capsules of your hopes, dreams, and ambitions when you were the most fertile of a brain, and it never goes away. I think we’re told that we’re adults instead of what if you realize that you never stopped being a kid.”
The plot of IF follows “a young girl who suddenly develops the ability to see everyone’s imaginary friends after undergoing a difficult situation. As she begins to see magic manifested in her daily doings, she realizes many of the imaginary friends she comes across were created by individuals when they were just children and then sadly forgotten about.” While the animated feature is not based on any prior intellectual property, it shares some similarities with the 1991 comedy Drop Dead Fred, which involves Phoebe Cates portraying a woman who reunites with her imaginary friend from when she was a little girl.
Ryan Reynolds recently won a Primetime Emmy Award for executive producing the reality series Welcome to Wrexham.