Bilal: A New Breed of Hero
Short description
Set one thousand years ago, this historical animation follows a boy who dreams of becoming a great warrior. After being kidnapped and taken to a distant land with his sister, he is forced into a society governed by greed and injustice. Drawing on real events, the story depicts his struggle to find the courage to speak out and fight for change in a world where fairness is rare.
The film was directed by Ayman Jamal, who also served as a producer and co-writer alongside Alexander Kronemer and Michael Wolfe. It is the first of two listed films in Jamal's career, preceding Star Chaser. The voice cast features Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Jacob Latimore as Bilal at different ages, with China Anne McClain, Ian McShane, Cynthia Kaye McWilliams, and Fred Tatasciore in supporting roles.
Produced in the United Arab Emirates by Barajoun Entertainment and Resnick Interactive Development, the project had a budget of 30 million USD but earned 2 million USD at the worldwide box office. Audience reception is moderately positive, with a 6.8 rating on TMDB based on 170 votes. This is higher than the score given by film critics, who rated the movie 5.8 out of 10 across 40 reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- Creating each frame with the falcon required 5 terabytes of memory. Creating its battle with the snake took over 10 months of work.
- The Battle of Badra features over 5,000 characters and 1,000 horses. Each horse in the scene was given a unique coat color. Creating this battle alone took over 1,000,000 hours of processor time, 300,000 man-hours, and 100,000 gigabytes of computer memory.
- Animators and visual effects artists studied horses for six months to make them as realistic as possible on screen. Creating the animals took almost 2 years. It took more than 4 hours to create each frame with horses.
- The Battle of Badra was, at the time of the cartoon's release, the longest battle scene in the history of animation. It lasts 11 minutes.
Similar movies
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
