Trivia / Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken

• Banned in China: The movie was banned from several Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East, likely due to the presence of a few LGBTQ+ characters and/or implications.
• Box Office Bomb: Budget: $70 million. Box office: $15.7 million domestic, $45.6 million worldwide. It only made $5.5 million on its opening weekend, making it the worst opening weekend ever for a DreamWorks Animation film since Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, becoming the second lowest-grossing Dreamworks film, behind only Spirit Untamed, losing as much as an estimated $80 million for the studio. This was attributed to Invisible Advertising (pretty much nobody knew about the movie until the first trailer's release, which happened merely three months before the movie), mixed word-of-mouth, the first trailer practically spoiling the film's biggest plot twist for audiences, and very stiff competition in the month of June, releasing in the same month as two other animated films coming from competitors, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Elemental, and opening the same weekend as Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (which didn't do that well commercially either).
• Celebrity Voice Actor:
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, actress Azul Guaita plays Ruby while fellow actress and social media personality Nina Rubín Legarreta plays Chelsea.
  • In the Brazilian Portuguese dub, actress Giovanna Lancellotti plays Chelsea while actor Gabriel Santana plays Connor.
• Completely Different Title:
  • In Latin America, it's re-titled Krakens y Sirenas: Conoce a Los Gillman (Krakens and Mermaids: Meet the Gillmans).^note "Sirena" in Spanish is literally "siren" but has evolved to mean "mermaid", as in other Romance languages.
  • In Israel, it's re-titled Ruby Neged Hazerem (Ruby against The Stream).
• Content Leak:
  • The film's existence as Meet the Gillmans, along with a basic plot synopsis, was leaked by The GWW on June 15, 2021.
  • Universal Pictures International Ireland's website leaked details about the film's new synopsis, logo, poster, and casting on Tuesday, March 14, 2023. This info wouldn't be officially available until two days later on Thursday, March 16, 2023. The original leaked link became password locked afterward.
• Deleted Scene: Included on the Blu-Ray and DVD release
  • An alternative opening with Ruby's narration would've flash-forward the prom boat and the arrival of Nerrisa in her kaiju form and Ruby preparing to stop her, only to flashback into a week earlier.
  • A scene with Ruby enters to a Market to save some sea creatures and her friends helping her in the process while escaping from one of the workers of the market. She would've also had the power to understand the sea creatures.
  • A scene with Ruby and Chelsea (oddly enough is openly called Nerissa) before meeting Agatha at her barbeque party to declare peace between krakens and mermaids would've come across Connor at a skatepark. Nerissa would advise Ruby to act cool to him and ask him to prom, which he excitingly responds yes. Then, Ruby would've come across her friends, whom they feel betrayed for ignoring them and spending time with Nerissa who proceeds to criticize them off when they try to hang with the two as they walk to the aforementioned barbeque party.
• Dueling Works: With The Little Mermaid. Both movies feature Mermaids in prominent roles, both released in the 2023 summer blockbuster season, one features a Race Lift of Ariel while the other features a villainous Expy of Ariel as the antagonist.
• DVD Commentary: With director Kirk DeMicco, co-director Faryn Pearl, producer Kelly Cooney Cilella, head of character animation Carlos Fernandez Puertolas and head of layout cinematography Jon Gutman.
• Fake American: Ruby's mother Agatha is voiced by Australian actress Toni Collette, while Chelsea is voiced by the Canadian Annie Murphy (ironic, considering the whole Canadian schtick the Gillmans try to play off in the film).
• He Also Did:
  • Production designer Pierre-Olivier Vincent also worked on all of the mainline How to Train Your Dragon films in the same role. Furthermore, his credits include Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron as a sequence director and The Road to El Dorado.
  • Head of Animation Carlos Puertola also worked on Megamind.
  • Craig Kellman is one of the credited character designers for the film, assisting with the finalized look of Connor among others. He's a prolific artist best known for various animated series like The Powerpuff Girls (1998), The Flintstones: On The Rocks, and Samurai Jack to name a few. He's better known within DreamWorks Animation as being the lead character designer for the Madagascar franchise since the original.
  • Pam Brady worked on writing the finished script for the film. She previously collaborated with Dreamworks as the creator of the short-lived 2d adult animated sitcom Neighbors from Hell.
    • Ronald Kutnianwan, who did visual development work on the film, also worked on Neighbors From Hell as an artist.
  • William Salazar worked on providing 2D test animation and model sheets during the film's preproduction for roughly 4 months, within the film's second iteration under Faryn Pearl and Kirk DeMicco's vision. As a long-time member of the company, he's also worked on all of their earliest 2D theaterical productions from The Prince of Egypt to Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. Salazar eventually got the chance to direct his own short, Bird Karma, in 2018.
• In Memoriam: The film is dedicated to Nick Levenduski, a crowds artist who Died During Production before the film's official release.
• Inspiration for the Work:
  • In an interview with Animation Magazine, Kirk DeMicco explained that the crew was very fond of replicating John Hughes-style teen comedies. Similar teen films like Book Smart, Lady Bird, Easy A were also namedropped.
  • Production designer Pierre-Olivier Vincent defined the curvy look of the characters and props from the shape language of octopi.
  • According to Darren Webb's storyboard for Ruby's school transformation, the creature screeching Ruby does in her Reactive Continuous Scream is intentionally inspired by Godzilla.
• Invisible Advertising: The movie was rumored to exist as early as 2021, but DreamWorks Animation had been very quiet about it officially. The only evidence was some early pieces of leaked development art. On March 16, 2023, a trailer did eventually release, but it was not only a mere three months before the film's premiere in June 2023. While more advertising for the movie was made, most of it was quite hard to find due to not being posted by any official DreamWorks or Universal accounts (with only a few exceptions like the second trailer), instead having to be shared by fans.
• Late Export for You: Australia and New Zealand got a theatrical release of the film in September 2023 (in time for the school holidays there) almost three months after its domestic debut, ironically the same month the movie will come out on Blu-Ray and DVD in the US. Japan later got the film during December of that year, but not in theaters but on digital platforms... with nary a promotion.
• Saved from Development Hell: In an interview with Animation Magazine, producer Kelly Cooney Cilella noted that the film had been in development for several years.
• Short Run in Peru: The film was released in parts of Europe, Latin America, and select Asian countries on June 28 and 29 before hitting the United States, although American chain Regal Cinemas showed the film as part of their $5 Monday Mystery Movie promotion on June 19, 2023.
• Staff-Created Fan Work: Storyboarder Darren Webb created a few parody movie posters featuring the characters. "Kraken Park" (Jurassic Park), "R.G." (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial), "Ruby" (Jaws), and "Mer-Maids" (Bridesmaids)
• Vindicated by Cable: Or in this case Digital: The film's poor box office run met Universal's post-lockdown requirements ^note For films with an opening worldwide weekend debut under $50 million, Universal would put the film on digital store markets at a premium price, after 17 days in theaters. This was the case for the 2022 DreamWorks entries, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and The Bad Guys (2022), despite eventually legging out in the box office. for early premium video-on-demand release, which was three weeks after its theatrical release. However, it quickly became the top three most viewed films on Vudu and one of the top five most viewed films on iTunes with both Peacock and Netflix set to gain releases in the coming weeks as part of the deal with Universal and DreamWorks in the US. It also gained the number one spot on Redbox with the blu-ray, DVD and digital sales. On February 2024, it entered on the Top 5 most viewed films on Netflix, thanks to 6.5 million viewers streaming the movie for a total of 9.8 million hours. It may not have gained an audience in theaters, but it did gain a massive audience on digital.
• Voices in One Room: Liza Koshy, Ramona Young and Eduardo Franco recorded their lines together as Margot, Bliss and Trevon.
• What Could Have Been: Has its own page.
• Word of God:
  • While the nature of Chelsea's true identity puts scrutiny over anything she says before the reveal that she's actually Nerissa, according to the director Kirk DeMicco, the mermaids really were forced into hiding for over 15 years after the Battle of the Trident. This is backed up by the co-director, Faryn Pearl, reinforcing◊ that Chelsea wasn't lying about being alone for 15 years and it was her genuinely relating to Ruby's own plight.
  • From the director's commentary
    • Nessie is a baby Loch Ness Monster, requires freshwater, and wouldn't be able to survive the ocean.
    • Chelsea genuinely believes she's the hero of the story.
    • War is treated as tradition for Kraken Royalty.
    • Agatha does not like her giant kraken form and views it as a last resort.
• Working Title: It was initially known as Meet the Gillmans, with a leaked title showing a stylized tentacle "S" at the end. The working title ended up as the subtitle to the aforementioned Completely Different Title in the Latin American release above.

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