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<ul class="summary-list"><li>Director <keyword id="13369258" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="michael-rianda" source="Orion">Michael Rianda</keyword> told Insider how they convinced <keyword id="6358540" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="sony" source="Orion">Sony</keyword> to make Katie Mitchell queer.</li><li>Rianda praised one of the movie's animators, <keyword id="13369259" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="lizzie-nichols" source="Orion">Lizzie Nichols</keyword>, for penning a letter to the executives.</li></ul>LGBTQ+ animator Lizzie Nichols just wanted to work on a movie she believed in. But she ended up being the catalyst in making "<a href="https://www.insider.com/how-the-mitchells-vs-the-machines-got-to-netflix-sony-2021-4">The Mitchells vs. the Machines</a>" an anomaly in big studio animation storytelling.Before the acclaimed movie was released on <keyword id="11892922" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="netflix" source="Orion">Netflix</keyword> last November and became a best animated film Oscar nominee, it was called "Connected" inside the halls of Sony. Before Sony sold the movie to Netflix amid the pandemic, it was known by most as the next project shepherded by "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. But for Nichols, the animated film was way more than a story about a dysfunctional family becoming the only hope for the world against a robot apocalypse.After seeing a storyboard screening of the movie and convincing director Michael Rianda to let her work on the film, Nichols realized something."Katie seems kind of queer to me," she told Insider over a Zoom call earlier this week.<div type="image" title="Mitchells Netflix" height="1514" width="2800" msid="90173552" hostid="261"></div><h2>The creators asked, 'Are we allowed to do that?'</h2>Underneath this hilarious movie, its main character, Katie Mitchell (voiced by Abbi Jacobson), seemed to be gay."But I don't think I ever said it out loud to anyone," Nichols said. "In a way, sadly, I internalized like, Well that can't happen so I'll just keep that quiet in my mind that I think Katie's queer."However, that's exactly what Rianda, co-director Jeff Rowe, and the other creatives were doing: making their lead character queer. Just no one knew it yet.Rianda and Rowe are straight, but Rianda said in crafting Katie, he not only based the character on him and his sister's complex relationship with their dad growing up but the people he befriended when he went to art school."I noticed all the people I was basing Katie on were queer to the point that people on the movie started asking, 'Is Katie gay?' And I was like, 'Are we allowed to do that?'" Rianda told Insider in the same conversation.<div type="image" title="Mike Rianda behind storyboards" height="3702" width="5534" msid="90173555" hostid="261"></div>In the world of studio animation, having a gay character is rare — let alone making the lead character gay. But Rianda said it fit the character, so without asking for permission he just made her gay.In the movie, Katie sports a rainbow pin on her hoodie and has a crush on Jade, a girl who attends the same art school (before robots take over the world). Then at the end of the movie, Katie's mom asks if she and Jade are "official" and if she'll be bringing her home for Thanksgiving."When people were like, 'Well, they will never let us do it,' it was like we are they. We are the decision-makers in the room. We can either choose to do this or not," Rianda said. Still, when it was finally time to let Sony executives in on what was happening, Rianda turned to Nichols, who — along with a group of LGBTQ+ artists on the film — had become major supporters in Katie being part of the queer community.Several decided to write letters to Sony explaining why it was important that Katie was queer. Rianda said it was Nichols' letter that stood out."I was sobbing when I read it," he said. "And I was like, 'Well, they are not going to say no to this!'" <div type="image" title="Lizzie Nichols behind in front of a book shelf" height="1741" width="2316" msid="90173556" hostid="261"></div><h2>Nichols said she wanted her letter to 'remind people of the stakes'</h2>Nichols' letter, which Rianda<a href="https://twitter.com/michaelrianda/status/1484172272797503490?s=21"> shared on Twitter in January</a> with her permission, noted that she "wanted to be part of a movie — and of a studio — who is on the right side of history.""We do not want to silence ourselves for fear of a bigoted few," she wrote at the end of her letter. "We don't want to cave to their worldview. We have to be on the side of what is right and just. We just need the backbone to do it. Be that backbone."With Nichols' letter in hand, Rianda met with the Sony executives. He said most were fully supportive, though a few were concerned."It was nerve-wracking," Rianda said of the meeting. "Some people who were very nervous were going, 'We don't know about returns in other countries.'"Regardless, Rianda said by the end of the meeting there was zero pushback. Katie was queer."Sony really pulled through and didn't chicken out, because the truth is, you can't do this at every studio," Rianda said.Hours after speaking to Rianda and Nichols for this story, <a href="https://variety.com/2022/film/news/disney-pixar-same-sex-affection-censorship-dont-say-gay-bill-1235200582/">Variety reported</a> that the LGBTQ+ staff at Pixar alleged that Disney demanded cuts in their <keyword id="11898343" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="movies" source="Orion">movies</keyword> of "nearly every moment of overtly gay affection...regardless of when there is protest from both the creative teams and executive leadership at Pixar."This followed the company-wide memo from Disney CEO Bob Chapek regarding recent Florida legislation known as the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fight-over-floridas-dont-say-gay-bill-explained-2022-2">"Don't Say Gay" bill</a>, which would ban discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. In the memo, Chapek said the "biggest impact" the company can make "in creating a more inclusive world is through the inspiring content we produce."Most recently, critics and fans pointed to Disney's alleged queer coding in a Pixar movie, "Luca," which follows two boys who are sea monsters trying to navigate a town that hates sea monsters. <a href="https://www.insider.com/luca-lgbt-gay-queer-coded-2021-6">Insider noted</a> after the release, it was "disappointing that Disney's Pixar wasn't brave enough to fully commit to its first queer animated tale." "I just wanted to remind people of the stakes," Nichols said looking back on why she wrote the letter in the first place. "We need to push the narrative a little further. And I said to use my name in the letter. I wanted the people in charge to have a face. That we are not just a blob of queer people out in the world. We are real." "The Mitchells vs. the Machines" is currently available on Netflix.

'The Mitchells vs. the Machines' creators convinced executives to make the movie's lead queer with a tear-inducing letter

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Director <keyword id="11182808" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="michael-rianda">Michael Rianda</keyword> says "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" was set to be Rick and Katie's song.</li><li>But he realized the Whitney Houston classic is a "super gross" choice for a dad/daughter song.</li><li>After trying out 90 songs, Rianda and his team landed on T.I.'s "Live Your Life" instead.</li></ul>One of the most touching moments in <keyword id="128682" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Netflix">Netflix</keyword>'s "The Mitchells vs. The Machines" is the connection dad Rick (voiced by Danny McBride) and daughter Katie (Abbi Jacobson) have with the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koVHN6eO4Xg">T.I. song "Live Your Life."</a>As Katie prepares to go off to college, Rick comes up with the idea of the family packing into the car and going on a cross-country road trip to see her off. During the trip, Rick tries to reconnect with Katie one last time by putting on the T.I. song that features Rihanna, which they loved to sing when she was a kid.The attempted bonding between the two gets more complicated when AI robots try to overtake the world and the Mitchells are the only ones left to stop them.But "Live Your Life" is perfectly implemented again later on, towards the end of the movie, when the song plays to signify Katie's love for her dad - as they destroy evil robots together.However, "Mitchells" director Michael Rianda said "Live Your Life" was chosen later in the making of the movie."For a long time, it was '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH3giaIzONA">I Wanna Dance With Somebody</a>' by Whitney Houston," Rianda told Insider, looking back on that original choice as a huge mistake."I love it as a song, but it's so romantic that if you listen to the song for a second it's super gross having a dad and daughter singing it together. Like, 'I want to feel the heat with somebody?' That's not super cool for a dad to say to his daughter," he added.<div type="image" title="Mitchells Netflix 3" height="2160" width="3996" msid="82344396" hostid="261"></div>Thus an epic quest began to find the right father/daughter song.Rianda said his team tried out 90 different songs. Finally it was codirector Jeff Rowe who got "Live Your Life" in the mix."Jeff ran in one day playing his iPhone and was like, 'This is the song!' And it was the T.I. song and I was like 'Yes!' We ran over to our editor and he put the song in a scene," Rianda recalled.But to make sure they had the right song, Rianda said they did a "Gong Show"-like contest at one point to make it official."Each editor had 25 songs and they would play five seconds of it and if in that five seconds it couldn't beat 'Live Your Life,' it got eliminated," he said.Anyone on the crew was allowed to ring an automated gong sound to eliminate a song.Rianda said a distant second was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj_9CiNkkn4">ABBA's "Waterloo."</a> But the clear winner was always "Live Your Life.""It's a funny and very joyous song," he said."The Mitchells vs. The Machines" is available now on Netflix.

'The Mitchells vs. The Machines' director reveals the 'super gross' father/daughter song they'd picked for the movie before landing on T.I.'s 'Live Your Life'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Director <keyword id="11182808" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="michael-rianda">Michael Rianda</keyword> tells Insider the 4-year journey it took to get his movie to <keyword id="128682" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Netflix">Netflix</keyword>.</li><li>At one time it was to be released by Sony, who changed the title to Rianda's dismay.</li><li>The movie boasts a 96% Rotten Tomatoes rating, in part thanks to its envelope-pushing animation.</li></ul>Director Michael Rianda is in a really good mood these days.After four years of getting his first animated movie off the ground - which included a title change and the movie going from Sony to Netflix - "The Mitchells vs. The Machines" (available Friday) is the streamer's first bonafide hit of the summer.Using the voices of stars like Abbi Jacobson, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Eric André, and Olivia Colman alongside envelope-pushing animation, the heartwarming movie follows the Mitchell family (and their not so attractive dog Monchi) who are the world's only hope in defeating a powerful army of AI robots.Rianda, who is known best in animation circles as the creative director on the Disney XD show "Gravity Falls," said a lot of the quirky family elements in the movie are based on his own."These <keyword id="406" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="Movies">movies</keyword> take a long time, so I was thinking what do I love enough to put years into?" Rianda told Insider. "The very first thing I thought of was my crazy family."The result is "The Mitchells vs. The Machines" featuring dazzling visuals that take more than one viewing to catch all the nuances in each frame.One such notable nuance is the 3D animation flairs that happen throughout the movie (example: colorful lines surrounding a cell phone to indicate the buzz of a call), which Rianda described as it feeling like the movie's main protagonist, Katie (Abbi Jacobson), an aspiring filmmaker, "drawing on the frame and editing the movie herself."<h2><div type="image" title="Mitchells Netflix 2" height="2160" width="3996" msid="82331659" hostid="261"></div></h2><h2>Rianda used a PowerPoint presentation to try and convince Sony executives not to change the movie's title</h2>Developing the movie at Sony, Rianda said the reaction to his unconventional stylings were met with hesitancy. But then a lifeline was extended by Oscar-winning producers/directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller ("Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs," "The Lego Movie").While making "<a href="https://www.insider.com/spider-verse-miles-breaking-glass-theory-2019-2">Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,</a>" the duo were shown the storyboards of "The Mitchells vs. The Machines" and were blown away."I was so delighted that they had watched the movie and then they were like, 'Would it be okay if we were executive producers?' And I was like yeah, are you high? Of course it would be okay!"With established names now backing him, Rianda found Sony more receptive to his and his team's unique visuals, which the director describes as the complete opposite spectrum to what "Spider-Verse" did."We made ours look more hand-drawn like a human made it, versus the slick comic book look," he said.But Rianda wasn't given full freedom. In February 2020, Sony announced that it was changing the movie's title from "The Mitchells vs. The Machines" to "Connected."<h2><div type="image" title="Mitchells Netflix 3" height="2160" width="3996" msid="82331661" hostid="261"></div></h2>Rianda said the studio thought the "Mitchells" title felt too B-movie. Despite Rianda's pleas to keep the title, even doing a PowerPoint presentation to executives to win them over, the "Connected" title stayed.Then things got worse. The pandemic hit and suddenly Rianda's movie, which was originally to open in theaters in October, was in limbo like many others.It led to Sony selling the movie to Netflix in January 2021. And Rianda got his original title back."I was so pumped when we got to Netflix and they were like, 'We like the old name,' and I was like, 'I like the old name!' That got us off on the right foot," he said.Looking back, despite the ups and downs, Rianda can't complain about how everything worked out. Especially seeing the movie is sporting a <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_mitchells_vs_the_machines">96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes</a>. His biggest joy is that the team who worked on the movie with him like it."In my head, during the lifecycle of making this movie, I was worried if it's bad all these people spent four years on nothing," he said. "I'm just happy all of them like the movie.""The Mitchells vs. The Machines" is available on Netflix beginning Friday.

How 'The Mitchells vs. The Machines' director navigated a move from Sony to Netflix to helm one of the highest-rated movies of the year

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'The Mitchells vs. the Machines' creators convinced executives to make the movie's lead queer with a tear-inducing letter

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'The Mitchells vs. The Machines' director reveals the 'super gross' father/daughter song they'd picked for the movie before landing on T.I.'s 'Live Your Life'

Jason Guerrasio

How 'The Mitchells vs. The Machines' director navigated a move from Sony to Netflix to helm one of the highest-rated movies of the year

Jason Guerrasio

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