Small island. Big adventure! The release of the new animated feature film, The Boxcar Children, Surprise Island, is coming August 7th. This direct to home video title comes courtesy Legacy Classics and Shout Kids.
This adaption of the popular children’s book of the same name, stars Golden Globe®-winning actor Martin Sheen (The West Wing) as James Alden, Oscar®-winner J.K. Simmons (Whiplash) as Dr. Moore, Dane DeHaan (Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets) as the mysterious Joe, Joey King (Independence Day: Resurgence) as Jesse Alden, Carter Sand (Frozen) as Benny Alden, Gil Birmingham (Twilight) as Lonan Browning, Griffin Gluck (Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life) as Henry Alden, Stephen Stanton (Star Wars Rebels) as Capt. Daniel and Talitha Bateman (Love, Simon) as Violet.
This work sees these lads spending their entire summer living on their Grandfather’s small, nearly uninhabited island. There they meet Joe, who is friendly and helpful, and inexplicably living on their island. Does their new friend have a secret?
Directed by Dan Chuba and Mark Dippé, this film is the first of three new animated features to be adapted from the “The Boxcar Children” book series. For those who have not yet heard of them, the books by Gertrude Chandler Warner can be found at most bookstores. The collected volumes 1-4 are available as a single package on Amazon and is one of the best-selling children’s book series of all time and has recently marked its 75th anniversary, over 70 million books have sold world-wide. There are 150 books in the series, and over 1 million kids read the books in schools across North America every year.
By James Robert Shaw (The Wind Up Geek)