David Wachtenheim and Robert Marianetti Talk ‘Leo’

Released to overwhelmingly favorable reviews, Adam Sandler’s new animated musical comedy, Leo, is by all available metrics, a big hit for Netflix. The 3DCG film, directed by longtime partners in comedic crime David Wachtenheim, Robert Marianetti, and Robert Smigel – more on that later - debuted November 21 at the top of the streamer’s English Films List, racking up 34.6 million views in its first six days, making it the most viewed title that week and the biggest debut for a Netflix animated film. Leo also made a memorable debut at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. And who doesn’t love a parade! With a giant, tethered, inflatable iguana!

The film stars Sandler as the titular, curmudgeonly 74-year-old iguana, stuck living for decades in an elementary school class terrarium, who plots his escape – complete with an odd bucket list - after learning he only has one year to live. At the same time, he can’t help but offer friendly advice to a bunch of kids who each must take him home for a weekend, only to discover – and swear to keep secret – that he can talk.

Leo takes a rather unconventional approach to animated storytelling for kids and family that almost by definition, smacks of conventionality. Blending a kinder, gentler take on Sandler and Smigel’s historically savage, snarky wit with a series of cute but slightly subversive songs and some great looking animation from Animal Logic, the film presents itself unapologetically as a comedy where no one is spared – kids laugh at kids, kids laugh at parents (who deserve to be laughed at), and terrarium pets laugh at everyone – while no one is ever really targeted. The humor, and Leo’s initially misguided attempts to leverage the kids as a means of escape, ultimately help the youngsters deal with their own insecurities and sense of doubt, while helping the longtime class pet understand his quest for freedom only reinforces how his most important journey leads right back where he started.

Smigel is the brilliant, multiple Emmy Award-winning writer, producer, and comedian behind Saturday Night Live’s famous Saturday TV Funhouse animated shorts (alongside J. J. Sedelmaier), including The Ambiguously Gay Duo, that ran first on The Dana Carvey Show before moving over to Saturday Night Live, where after three years, Wachtenheim and Marianetti took up the production helm through their New York-based W/M Animation house. Hilarity ensued. They also all worked together (along with Sandler) on Hotel Transylvania 2.

And they’re all incredibly funny.  

I recently had a chance to speak with Wachtenheim and Marianetti, who riffed on their film, their working dynamic as a directing pair and as collaborators with Sandler and Smigel, and how animated comedy has changed since they first savaged pop culture – and so many top stars – most Saturday nights.

Dan Sarto: How did you get onto this project?

David Wachtenheim: Well, you know, we worked with [Robert] Smigel and SNL TV Funhouse, and then we worked on Hotel Transylvania too. We developed a relationship with [Adam] Sandler on that film. He got to know our sensibilities. We sent a lot of notes on the script to Smigel before we even got onto that film. He liked our notes and contributions, and he wanted to do something else with us. And a few years later, he started sending us scripts here and there. Nothing really felt quite right, but we'd give some feedback and notes.

The story goes that Sandler wanted to watch Grease with his daughters. They were about 10 or 11 at the time, maybe younger. And he realized that it wasn't really an appropriate movie for kids. It has some sexual innuendo, stuff like that. So, he decided he wanted to make a movie about kids, for kids in middle school, and make it a musical. He had this original script that he had put together with another writer [Paul Sado]. It had some elements that were interesting, but it really didn't feel like an animated movie. There was a narrator in it that you saw throughout, but you didn't know until the very last page that it was a snake in a classroom.

He had shown that script to Smigel, and he thought that that was a great idea, to take that idea of the class pet and make that the focus. And so, he and Adam wrote this movie based on Leo as this class pet who helps the kids. Smigel sent us the treatment, and we came back with ideas. We were bouncing things back and forth, but then they went off and wrote the script together. So, we were always kind of involved, but not officially attached until it came time to find directors. And they wanted us to be involved, they wanted us to direct, but we had to actually kind of audition. Adam and Robert had to go look at other directors just to say to Netflix, “You know, we did our due diligence, but we still want these guys involved.” And that's what happened. So, we pitched, we did some preliminary artwork and stuff, and the rest is history. 

Robert Marianetti: And the other great thing too is we're East Coast-based, primarily television directors. From Sesame Street to SNL, to working with Adult Swim on a couple projects. Features were new to us. And here you got two guys in their 50s and they give us the chance to direct such a huge, high-profile film. It was huge. And you know, for Adam and Robert [laughs], you know, it’s not just our bubbly, sparkling personalities. We also share a common comedic sensibility with them.

We understand what they're going for. We get the project. We weren't trying to throw out their jokes and throw our own two cents in there. We would take their ideas, their jokes, and try to elevate them. Like, “Hey, what kind of spin can we put to 'em that'll have even more resonance?” So, it was like we were on the same page, which really helped us get on that page sooner and hit the core of the story even harder, I feel. 

DS: Tell me a bit about your working dynamic with Sandler and Burr. Both gave inspired performances. They’re both very funny comedians.

DW: This was Adam's baby. He wanted this movie to be a AAA movie for his kids, about kids. He is the executive producer, co-writer, and star. So, Adam was much fully involved artistically, creatively, with every aspect of the film. Bill is an amazing comedian. And Smigel, you know, pretty much wrote that character with Bill in mind, that snarky Boston character. It's perfect Bill Burr. He was just great. Very enthusiastic, wanted to come in, do the jokes, get 'em right. Every line, you know, he would try to throw in an ad-lib. It was just great.

RM: I want to add Cecily Strong, to include her in there. It's such a great story. Originally, someone, a bigger name, was being discussed, you know, for box office reasons, this and that. And what happened is we were doing a table read right before COVID broke out and Cecily happened to be here on the West Coast, and Robert asked, “Can you come in and do the table read?” He sent her the script a few days before the table read and due to traffic, she was running a bit late. But she shows up, opens up her bag, takes out the script, and man was she prepared. That voice that you hear was what she did at the table read. It cracked everybody up. Cecily's an amazing singer. And so, after we heard that voice, after the table read, there was no question. That's our Ms. Malcolm.

Adam has such a wide range of friends in the business. Smigel too. Like Jason Alexander comes on board because Robert's worked with him in the past. He did an SNL cartoon with us in the past, you know? It was just great hearing him sing.

DS: I know that for Adam, going back to his earliest days on SNL and as a comedian, music was always a part of his repertoire, these silly songs with a little nasty edge. But there was this innocent cuteness about them. The songs in the movie are fantastic. There’s that little bit of subversiveness in what is actually being sung, not just to be clever or mean. Who wrote the songs and how tough were they to integrate into the animation?

DW: The songs are really all Robert Smigel. I think Adam helped a little bit here and there, maybe with “Don't Cry,” and lyrically here and there. But the songs really came from Smigel. He has been doing some songs with Triumph [the Insult Comic Dog], and occasionally writes these really funny, goofy, comedic songs. And Adam wanted the film to be in the vein of Grease as a musical for kids. But, with Robert being such an amazing comedy writer, there's no way that these were going to be traditional songs, right? There's going to be some kind of song spoofs or takes on what these songs should be. 

RM: Early on, Smigel sent us demos of the songs that he had recorded. He would record late at night, like under his covers or in a closet or bathroom, so he wouldn't disturb his wife or his kids. And we’d get these weird demo tapes, just him singing into his phone. We didn't quite get what the songs were going to be exactly. At the time, Adam had his 100% Fresh comedy special on Netflix, and it had a lot of songs on it. Each one was a different genre, a different style of song. And we thought that'd be a great idea for the film, because they're so weird and funny. Maybe this was an opportunity to take each song and do it in a bit of a different visual style. So, we played a little bit with the animation styles to give just a little bit more heightened reality to the music. The movie itself is kind of rooted in reality; it should feel like a real school with real kids and a talking lizard. But we wanted the songs to be more fantastical. 

DW: For “Don’t Cry,” there is a different sensibility behind the song. Every child psychologist in the world will tell you not to tell kids not to cry. I'll just say the execs were really worried about that song and rightfully so. But Adam and Robert knew what they were doing. We did temper it a little bit. Even Leo is crying at the end, which ties into the song. But it was hard for people to grasp originally. And that's one of the fortunate aspects of working with Adam. People will go out on a limb and trust his instincts, and so it stayed in there. And I think what was most rewarding was when we showed this film to a preview audience with just the animatic and layout without footage of any sort, it played really well. Kids were applauding the song. A non-professional group of people. From that moment on, no one ever said, let's think about “Don't Cry.” 

DS: The animation in the film looks great. There are some interesting styles in there. And how you portrayed those little kids… I refer to them as the piranhas or mosquitos. It was brilliant. My daughter teaches kindergarten. I once spent 30 minutes in her classroom, and I was exhausted. Her kids… they were like piranhas. How did those characters come about?

DW: One of the things that survived from the original script was these little kindergarteners as almost other-worldly creatures. Kindergartners can be so snotty, screaming and yelling and running around. They’re exhausting. So, we wanted them to look almost like aliens. We went through a bunch of designs trying to figure out what that would look like before we finally landed on something. Unfortunately, it was one of the last things that ended up getting modeled. So, we didn't have a lot of time to figure out the movement and how they would look on screen. So, we ended up just pushing and pushing and saying, “I want it wilder, I want it crazier. I want it wilder and crazier.” We kept speeding them up and adding more craziness, having them jumping up and down. They were a lot of fun.

RM: An interesting thing about them, Dan, is that’s Adam mostly doing all their voices, making crazy noises. It’s sped up and they overlap over each other a little bit. It’s really funny.    

DS: Share a bit about your directing dynamic. You two have been working together for years. I'm sure you can complete each other's sentences. Do you divide and conquer or work together on everything?

RM: On this film, I feel like there were almost four directors. Adam, again, this is a film from his heart. He was helping, adding his 2 cents throughout the process. As far as David and I go, yeah, we've been partners for over 25 years now. So, it's like an old marriage to a certain degree. And in our own way of working, we do divide and conquer. We do everything together, but we have our strengths and weaknesses that we lean into. Now, with my dying breath, I’ll say David is one of the best animators I've ever worked with. He pays me to say that. But seriously, he's an amazing board artist and an amazing animator. His strength, you know, is storytelling and mine… I love the visual aspect, from camera to set design, production design, art directing. So, we really work well together. And on this film, the three of us, you know, with Smigel, we all had an equal voice. Some would take the lead on some things and others, they would listen. It was a really good working relationship. 

DW: The three of us were in every meeting every day. We were involved in everything. At one point, they did want us to divide and conquer because it would be easier to schedule meetings. But we really felt that it was important that we all had a voice in everything. Only when we were in animation and lighting, when it was really insane, did we did split up a little bit here and there. We've worked together for so long and with Smigel, you know, we developed a relationship and a trust.

DS: Last question. You guys have been involved in the animation business for a long time, going back to when SNL was an unprecedented outlet for cutting-edge animated shorts. You couldn't have had a higher profile outlet at that point. But since then, you’ve worked across the board, from terrestrial TV to cable, streaming, and theatrical. How has the business of telling funny animated stories changed for you and for audiences over these years? Because comedy, what people think is funny, and what you can say and how people react has fundamentally changed over the course of your careers. 

DW: I don't know if we could do some of the stuff that we did 20 years ago today. I don't know. There's a lot more sensitivity now. There was one point in the beginning of the film where we got an edit saying that teachers can't say, “Hey, you guys” to the classroom. And then, within a few weeks, there was an article, I think in the Wall Street Journal or Washington Post that said, “No, it's okay to say guys.” So that became a non-issue. Just like that, even within the course of the film, sensitivities were changing.

But everyone wanted to be sensitive… we wanted to be inclusive. And, even with the kids, you know, we tried to have a diverse bunch of kids, but without saying or making a point of, “We have a diverse bunch of kids.” It's just… they're kids. They're all kids! So, while we're trying to be more sensitive of people's feelings, there's also maybe some comedy elements from 20 years ago that would be okay to dive into today. Might not be but might. It’s all changing, and maybe it'll change again. Maybe it'll flip back the other way. Who knows.  

Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.