9 Upcoming Movies Studios Have No Confidence In
4. UglyDolls
The Movie
A new animated musical comedy from director Kelly Asbury (Shrek 2 and Gnomeo & Juliet), based on the plush toys you've probably never heard of, featuring the voices of Kelly Clarkson, Nick Jonas, Janelle Monáe, Pitbull, Blake Shelton, Wanda Sykes, Gabriel Iglesias, Emma Roberts, Charli XCX and more.
The colourful titular misfits head off on an adventure where they discover the importance of being themselves, among other family-friendly truisms.
What's Wrong?
For starters, this film seems way too similar to Trolls, and just about everybody knows it - most of all STX Entertainment, which, uh, doesn't exactly have the most illustrious catalogue of movies to its name.
But the most telling indication of the studio's own disinterest in the film is its release date. UglyDolls is set to bow on May 3 in the U.S., sandwiched directly between the releases of Avengers: Endgame and Pokémon: Detective Pikachu.
This makes it painfully clear that STX knows they've got a dud on their hands, so they're going to scarcely market it and quietly drop it in-between two guaranteed hits where it can basically disappear without a trace. Yikes.