If you’ve ever wondered what emojis would look like if they were anthropomorphized to look like mutated Pac-Man characters, just take a look at the first image from Sony’s upcoming Emojimovie: Express Yourself. The project, which we were hoping was a joke when it was being bounced around last year, will star The Late Late Show host James Corden and Broad City’s Ilana Glazer when it hits theaters on August 11, 2017.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film centers on Textopolis, a world inside our phones where emojis live. While most have only one facial expression, the movie will follow a unique emoji named Gene (played by Silicon Valley’s T.J. Miller) who can show multiple expressions. In an effort to be “normal,” he teams up with a friend, Hi-5 (Corden), and the infamous Jailbreak (Glazer) to find a fix. The trio will encounter “the most popular and universally recognized smartphones apps” in their journey, which means you can expect a slew of on the nose jokes about Facebook and Snapchat (and maybe a sly reference to swiping right on Tinder).
Now there’s a slim chance Emojimovie could actually end up being watchable. But unlike The LEGO Movie, this project doesn’t a team of renowned comedians behind it. The film is directed by Anthony Leondis, who previously handled the direct-to-video Lilo & Stitch 2, who also shares writing credits with sitcom writer Eric Siegel. And judging from the image above, it doesn’t seem like much thought was put into character designs, aside from slapping stick figure legs and simple faces on existing emojis.
