Bong Joon Ho‘s much-anticipated animated feature Ally has lined up its voice cast, with Bradley Cooper, Ayo Edebiri, Dave Bautista, Finn Wolfhard, Rachel House and Werner Herzog joining the project, the Oscar-winning director’s producers announced Tuesday on day one of the Cannes Film Festival. Newcomer Alex Jayne Go led the casting announcement, suggesting she could be voicing the title role.
The reveal arrives alongside recent word that Neon has signed on to release the film in North American theaters in 2027 — marking the indie label’s reunion with Bong following its 2019 release of Parasite, which famously became the first non-English-language film to win the Oscar for best picture.
Ally is Bong’s first foray into 3D animated filmmaking, a passion project he has been developing since 2019. Set deep beneath the South Pacific, the family adventure follows a curious piglet squid — presumably voiced by Go — as she journeys from the ocean’s uncharted depths to its surface after a mysterious aircraft sinks into her habitat.
No word yet on the characters played by the various familiar Hollywood names revealed by the casting. For Cooper, a 12-time Oscar nominee, the project marks a return to animated voice work after his run as Rocket Raccoon in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. The Bear breakout Edebiri will premiere the Arie and Chuko Esiri drama Clarissa — another Neon title — in the Directors’ Fortnight section at the Cannes Film Festival this week. Bautista (Dune), House (Moana) and Wolfhard (Stranger Things) bring some further franchise familiarity to the cast. The involvement of Herzog’s heavily accented Bavarian baritone is likely to delight international film buffs.
Outside North America, Pathé will distribute Ally in France, Benelux, Switzerland and West Africa, while CJ ENM and Penture Invest will handle South Korea, Vietnam, Turkey and Indonesia. Pathé is also overseeing international sales in Cannes this week (excluding Japan and China, which CJ and Penture are managing directly).
The 3D animation on Ally is being handled by VFX studio DNEG (Inception, Dune), with a creative team drawing from 12 countries that includes animation supervisor Jae Hyung Kim (Toy Story 4, Inside Out), Shrek franchise veteran David Lipman as supervising producer and Klaus production designer Marcin Jakubowski. Bong co-wrote the screenplay with Jason Yu, the South Korean filmmaker behind 2023 horror feature Sleep. Ally is produced by frequent Bong collaborator Seo Woo-sik, who also produced Mother (2009) and Okja (2017).
Korean industry chatter has suggested Ally‘s budget could reach $60 million, which would make it the most expensive feature ever produced in the country. The film is targeting completion in the first half of 2027 ahead of a global theatrical release later that year.
