Spies in Disguise
PRODUCTION NOTES
Super spy Lance Sterling (Will Smith) and scienst Walter Becke (Tom Holland) are almost exact opposites. Lance is smooth, suave and debonair. Walter is…not. But when events take an unexpected turn, this unlikely duo is forced to team up for the ulmate mission that will require an almost impossible disguise – transforming Lance into the brave, fierce, majesc…pigeon. Walter and Lance suddenly have to work as a team, or the whole world is in peril.
Tweneth Century Fox presents a Blue Sky Studios producon, “Spies in Disguise,” an animated spy comedy adventure set in the slick, high-octane, globe-trong world of internaonal espionage. “Spies in Disguise” is directed by Troy Quane and Nick Bruno from a screenplay by Brad Copeland and Lloyd Taylor and a screen story by Cindy Davis inspired by the animated short film “Pigeon Impossible”
by Lucas Martell. The film features the voice talents of Will Smith, Tom Holland, Rashida Jones, Ben Mendelsohn, Reba McEnre, Rachel Brosnahan, Karen Gillan, DJ Khaled and Masi Oka. “Spies in Disguise” is produced by Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping and Michael J. Travers, p.g.a., with Chris Wedge and Kori Adelson serving as execuve producers.
Brimming with confidence and swagger, Lance is the world’s greatest spy—the best of the best of internaonal espionage agents, his moo “I fly solo,” lets you know it. Lance is all sharp angles, tall, elegantly ared, exuding coolness. Everyone knows his name, and he is oen greeted by his fans with applause. He’s also used to being armed with the most state-of-the-art, “cool” spy gadgetry, including his cung-edge two-seater sports vehicle, the Audi RSQ e-tron. In this way, Lance and all the other agents are dependent on the technical wizards behind- the-scenes who design these gadgets for The Agency.
One of these tekkies is awkward yet lovable Walter Becke. Walter is the opposite of Lance: short and appealingly geeky, dressed more for comfort and praccality than style; a genius, not an athlete. Where most of these gadgets designed by The Agency are intenonally destrucve and deadly, Walter, who graduated MIT at age 15, has a different point of view, and designs gadgets that are completely effecve, but cause no harm.
For example, when tasked to create a grenade, he invents a device that explodes with glier and creates a visual of an adorable kien. Why? Walter understands that seeing a kien releases serotonin, causing the viewer to feel happy, reduce aggression and become distracted from the situaon. Much safer than a grenade that blows things up.
While Lance believes in fighng fire with fire, Walter believes that type of thinking just gets everyone burned. If Walter could save the world with a hug, he would.
Friendless save for his faithful pet pigeon Lovey, Walter’s co-workers at The Agency refer to him as a weirdo, but he was raised by his late police officer mother to believe in himself and his unconvenonal ideas. Together, Walter and his Mom proudly called themselves “Team Weird.”
Lance and Walter both work at The Agency,
headed by Joy Jenkins (Reba McEnre) who
Lance affeconately calls “Joyless.” She’s a
prey tough nut. Harsh and demanding, she
doesn’t have many so spots, but one of
them is for Lance. Her devoon is tested when
Internal Affairs agent Marcy Kappel (Rashida
Jones) reveals evidence that shows Lance has
stolen a cataclysmically deadly drone from The
Agency’s covert weapons lab. The truth is that the weapon, the M-9 Assassin, is really in the hands of supervillain Keller “Robohand” Killian (Ben Mendelsohn), disguised as Lance. A criminal whose real identy is unknown to global authories, Killian’s missing right hand has been replaced by a roboc claw, hence his nickname.
Joy can’t believe that Lance would turn, but Marcy, aided by her video surveillance and analysis agent Eyes (Karen Gillan) and audio analysis expert Ears (DJ Khaled), is determined to have him arrested.
Lance, knowing there is a bad guy out there, needs to go rogue to stop him. Eluding capture by Internal Affairs, Lance is able to escape from The Agency headquarters and, remembering Walter saying that he could make someone disappear, heads to Walter’s house seeking this new technology. Walter has been working on an invenon called bio-dynamic concealment, an elixir that will make whoever ingests it turn into something that most people ignore—allowing them to disappear in plain sight.
When Lance unintenonally drinks the formula, he is transformed into a pigeon. As Walter says, “Pigeons are everywhere, and nobody noces them! It’s the most perfect form a spy can take!”
Lance, who always viewed pigeons as “rats with wings,” is horrified and demands that Walter “unbird” him immediately. But Walter hasn’t yet cracked a formula to reverse his concealment invenon. Trapped in the body of a pigeon, our super suave spy struggles to adjust to his new body. What’s more, this guy who’s always flied solo finds himself suddenly part of a flock, surrounded by a trio of other pigeons.
And Walter, who may not be built for acon in the field, ends up out there, while he desperately tries to find the andote to the elixir. As they learn to work together in order to stop Robohand from turning the Assassin on mankind, Lance slowly begins to open himself up to a whole new, “weird” approach to saving the world from Walter.
