In the seaside town of Oceanside, California, fifteen-year-old Ruby Gillman lives with her family, who are trying to fit in with the humans despite being krakens. Her mother Agatha forbids her from going to prom at her high school due to its location being on a ship in the ocean. Ruby originally decides not to go, but her friends Margot, Trevin, and Bliss convince her to go so she can ask out her crush Connor. Before she can ask him, due to a mishap Connor falls into the water. Ruby jumps in and saves him. Instead after Ruby placed him on the boat ramp, he believes he was saved by the new girl Chelsea Van Der Zee who tries to befriend Ruby.
When Ruby goes to hide in the library after seeing bioluminescent suction cups on her fingers, she transforms into a colossal, monstrous form as a result of her touching salt water. Temporarily halting her size growth, she is startled by the librarian and accidentally destroys the library in the process of her transformation. Chelsea stares in awe at Ruby’s kraken form while Ruby runs to the lighthouse. Agatha finds out and chases her, reuniting with her brother Brill along the way. Agatha calms a distressed Ruby down and she shrinks down to her normal size. Back at the house, Ruby’s father Arthur and her little brother Sam find out about Ruby’s transformation. Agatha tells Ruby that she also turns into a giant kraken.
Angered that Agatha never told her about what she was capable of, Ruby runs away to meet her Grandmamah, the Warrior Queen of the Seven Seas, along with Brill’s help. Grandmamah tells Ruby that she is a princess and next in line to take the throne. She also tells Ruby that mermaids are actually the most evil creatures in the seas and that they found a powerful trident called The Trident of Oceanus to defeat some of the krakens. Her mother trapped them for all eternity and hid the trident as well, leading Agatha to run away to the surface to raise Ruby and keep her safe. Ruby declines the throne, but is thankful to have finally met her grandmother. On her way home, she is trapped by elderly sailor and Oceanside tour guide Gordon Lighthouse, who almost kills her. However, Chelsea reveals herself to be a mermaid, saves Ruby, and helps her escape.
The next day, Ruby tries to go back to her normal life, but footage of her in her kraken form becomes viral. She ditches school with Chelsea, who tells her that her mother, the evil mermaid Queen Nerissa, was supposedly killed trying to get the Trident back. She asks Ruby to get it to help unite the krakens and mermaids, so Ruby trains with her grandmother to be powerful enough to get it.
On prom night, Ruby goes to tell her mother about Chelsea. Disappointed that Ruby made friends with a mermaid, Agatha forbids her from seeing her grandmother again. Ruby runs away to grab the trident for Chelsea. However, when she is able to retrieve it, Chelsea reveals that she actually is Nerissa, revealing that she escaped her imprisonment to find a kraken to manipulate into fetching her the Trident. As she starts growing into a monstrous size, she traps Ruby under some rubble before going to destroy the town. Agatha and Grandmamah try to fight her off while Brill finds a wounded and upset Ruby trapped. After he gives her some words of encouragement, she goes to the surface to stop Nerissa. As Nerissa overpowers Agatha and Grandmamah, Ruby rises to challenge her. During the fight, Ruby saves her friends and Connor on the prom boat, impressing him in the process.
Nerissa gains the upper hand, but not before Ruby disarms her, realising that the trident can be destroyed with enough power. The trio use their laser eyes to destroy it together, defeating Nerissa and shrinking her back to her normal size where she is captured by Gordon. Ruby reconciles with her friends and asks Connor out to prom, to which he accepts. Some time later, everyone goes back to their normal lives with Ruby and Connor becoming a couple as she becomes the protector of Oceanside.
In June 2021, TheGWW reported that a film originally titled Meet the Gillmans was in production at DreamWorks Animation, with casting taking place and an expected release year of 2022. Former SpongeBob SquarePants showrunner Paul Tibbitt was announced as the director, with Pam Brady confirmed to write the film. Lana Condor, Laura Dern, and Michael Sheen were circled for the roles of Ruby, her mother, and father, respectively, while Annie Murphy was attached to play the role of Clarica. Chris Kuser and Christi Soper were set to serve as executive producers. Production was also expected to start in 2022.
On March 14, 2023, the cast and crew were announced via Universal Pictures Ireland’s website. Along with Condor and Murphy’s roles confirmed, other new cast members of the film include Toni Collette, Sam Richardson, Liza Koshy, Will Forte, Colman Domingo, Jaboukie Young-White, Blue Chapman, Eduardo Franco, Ramona Young, Echo Kellum, Nicole Byer, and Jane Fonda, while Kirk DeMicco (replacing Tibbitt), Faryn Pearl, and Kelly Cooney Cilella were revealed as the director, co-director, and producer, respectively. DreamWorks Animation also announced its official title as Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken. The cast, crew, and official title were publicly announced two days later. Following the release of the film’s second trailer in May 2023, longtime DreamWorks director Mike Mitchell was revealed to have served as executive producer.
According to Animation Magazine, Cilella stated that the film has been in the works for several years. It was first pitched to DreamWorks about a family of sea monsters that were moved to the land and are hiding in plain sight. She stated: “Our heroine is such a lovable character and I’m so excited for audiences to meet her and fall in love with her the way we have because she starts the movie as a quirky, slightly insecure but bighearted character, but she’s harboring a secret that she can’t tell her friends. But ultimately the Kraken is awakened inside her and there’s no hiding this. She learns that her destiny is so much more than being an average high school teenager, and she’s destined to be the next big protector of the seas. Her journey is self-discovery and embracing that side of her that had been dormant for so long, and for her to become a fully actualized character was such an exciting story for me to tell on such a grand scale.” DeMicco stated that he cited John Hughes films, Easy A (2010), Lady Bird (2017) and Booksmart (2019) as his inspirations. Pierre-Olivier Vincent serves as the production designer, taking inspiration for the main character from the body of an octopus and bringing the “curviness to all the design language of the film”, from the cars to the underwater world.
The film was dedicated to Nick Levenduski, who died before the film was released.
- Lana Condor as Ruby Gillman, a shy freshman who is desperate to fit in at Oceanside High, despite being a kraken. She is described by the film’s producer Kelly Cooney as “a really normal teenager”.
- Toni Collette as Agatha Gillman, Ruby and Sam’s overprotective mother, Grandmamah’s daughter, Brill’s older sister and Arthur’s wife who works as a real estate agent and does not want her daughter to go to the sea with her would-be friends.
- Annie Murphy as Queen Nerissa/”Chelsea Van Der Zee”, the evil queen of the mermaids with a vendetta against the Gillman family who poses as the snobbish, popular new girl at Oceanside High in order to manipulate Ruby for her own malevolent ends.
- Colman Domingo as Arthur Gillman, Brill’s brother-in-law, Ruby and Sam’s supportive father and Agatha’s husband.
- Jane Fonda as Grandmamah, the Warrior Queen of the Seven Seas who is Ruby and Sam’s grandmother and Agatha’s mother.
- Sam Richardson as Brill, Agatha’s little brother, Grandmamah’s son, Ruby and Sam’s enthusiastic uncle, and Arthur’s brother-in-law.
- Will Forte as Captain Gordon Lighthouse, a crazy old sailor in Oceanside who works as a tour guide.
- Jaboukie Young-White as Connor, Ruby’s skater-boy crush who only seems to admire her for her math skills, though he becomes genuinely interested in her.
- Liza Koshy as Margot, a dramatic girl and Ruby’s best friend.
- Blue Chapman as Sam Gillman, a second-grade student and Ruby’s energetic and loyal younger brother.
- Eduardo Franco as Trevin, a gamer and one of Ruby’s friends.
- Ramona Young as Bliss, a goth girl and one of Ruby’s friends.
June 30, 2023
