Spellbound Director Says There Was ‘Concern’ Men Won’t Click on Netflix Film Because It’s a Musical (Exclusive)

Spellbound director Vicky Jenson is loud and proud about the animated film being a musical.

There’s been a recent trend in studios masking a film’s song-and-dance elements in ads in attempts to lure non-musical moviegoers, but Jenson never wanted to “hide” that about Spellbound.

The new fairy tale movie features music by Alan Menken, the Oscar winner behind songs from The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and more.

“This is an Alan Menken musical, and we’re very, very proud of that,” Jenson tells PEOPLE. “It’s very exciting for me to meet him and get to work with him and be part of his legacy of great musicals.”

“He has said that this is probably the best work he’s ever done,” she adds, noting that Spellbound is “a very unusual musical.” 

“It breaks some of the old paradigms for musicals,” explains Jenson. “I think there may be some concern that dads or men might not go or click on it because it’s a musical, but in my experience that’s not the case. So I don’t want to hide it.”

Following teen princess Ellian (Snow White star Rachel Zegler) as she tries to save her parents (Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem), who were turned into monsters.

Ellian and other members of the royal court have been diligently working to keep the king and queen’s transformation a secret, but as it threatens to spill out, the princess is forced to make the daring quest or risk her parents being exiled.

In addition to Jenson’s direction and Menken’s musical talents, Glenn Slater, who also worked on Tangled, is a key member of the film’s production team, aiding in the musical numbers.

Plus, the cast also includes Nathan Lane, Titus Burgess and John Lithgow. “He does the best pompous,” Jenson, also a co-director of 2001’s Shrek, says of Lithgow, 79. “No one gives pompous like John Lithgow.”

Throughout her journey to save her parents, Ellian and her companion critter Flink have to fight off the darkness, which serves as a metaphor for negative thoughts and feelings. 

“[Flink] was sort of the one who held her darker emotions for [Ellian, initially],” Jenson says. “He was the vessel of her anger and feelings of being alone and fear and all of those things, and that would grow big by the end of the movie.” 

Instead of offloading those feelings onto the adorable companion character, it was ultimately decided they would be “buried” in Ellian’s character.

Flink’s character poses a different arc throughout the tale, leaving the young princess to battle the darkness, internally and externally. This same darkness plays a key role in her parents’ transformation and is a vital component in the story’s overarching theme.

“From day one this was a story about a family experiencing a period of time that’s difficult,” Jenson says. “That was always the goal.”

Spellbound is on Netflix Nov. 22.