DreamWorks Animation, the studio that brought you unforgettable bonds between a boy and a dragon in How to Train Your Dragon, an ogre and a donkey in Shrek, and a robot and a gosling in The Wild Robot, now welcomes a dazzling and emotional story about two lifelong best friends who must come together before they drift apart in Forgotten Island.
Finding your soulmate does not necessarily mean falling in love. Sometimes, the connection between friends transcends the bounds of romantic relationships through the Filipino concept of kapwa, a shared identity rooted in mutual respect, care and interconnectedness. For Jo (H.E.R.) and Raissa (Liza Soberano), the two young women at the center of DreamWorks Animation’s wildly inventive Forgotten Island, friendship becomes an anchor, a portal and a force powerful enough to carry them across worlds. “Tayo na,” a Tagalog phrase that translates to “let’s go,” with the specific meaning of “going together,” symbolizes the narrative bond between all the characters in the film.
The story behind Forgotten Island began with a friendship of its own. Not Jo and Raissa’s, though their relationship is at the story’s center, but the creative partnership between writers and directors Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado, who first worked together on Kung Fu Panda 2 more than a decade ago. “We just organically found that we have the same sensibilities,” Crawford says. “We enjoy making each other laugh. We like the same movies. There is so much overlap in the way we think that we developed this shorthand, almost like an unspoken agreement. Writing together feels seamless, and that opens the door to special moments in the script.”
That shared language deepened across subsequent projects, including Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and The Croods: A New Age, both directed by Crawford. When the two began thinking about writing and directing an original film, they found their way to a story shaped by Filipino culture, mythology and family. Crawford’s wife is Filipina, and Mercado, who makes his feature directorial debut with Forgotten Island (and served as co-director on Puss in Boots: The Last Wish), is Filipino American. Together, they saw an opportunity to build a film from a culture that had shaped both of their lives in intimate ways. “We both have personal connections to the Philippines, so this movie is a love letter to our families and a culture that shaped our values,” Mercado says. “We thought a lot about the people who shape our lives, the loved ones who influence who we become and the way we move through the world.” Crawford adds: “Not only did we set out to write what we know, but rather who we know.”
For Crawford and Mercado, Filipino folklore offered a world of compelling cinematic possibility. At the center of that mythology were the Aswang, shapeshifting supernatural beings rarely represented in mainstream animation or in American filmmaking. “Aswang is the umbrella term for all shapeshifting, supernatural creatures,” Mercado says. “They are essentially the Philippines’ versions of monsters, vampires, werewolves, ghouls, goblins and elves. The mythology is so rich that we are barely even scratching the surface with the creatures that are featured in our story.”
From that mythology, the filmmakers shaped a genre-blending adventure about two Filipina teenagers, Jo and Raissa, who pass through a portal to Nakalimutan, or Nakali for short, a mythical island where the Aswang dwell. When the girls wake up on its shores with no memory of the previous night, they must retrace their steps, confront the strange creatures around them and find their way back to the mortal world.
Producer Mark Swift, who previously collaborated with Crawford and Mercado on the Academy Award®, BAFTA, and Golden Globe-nominated Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, immediately recognized the promise of the film’s originality. “Every movie I have done up until now has either been a sequel or based on a book,” Swift says. “To work on an original film is exciting because you are truly starting from scratch. There are no existing designs for the characters, no established personalities. Every idea is a new idea, and each one can take you down a different path. What is great about Joel and Januel’s partnership is that it came out of friendship. They completely trust each other and know what each brings to the table, so being on that journey with them has been fantastic.”
As they developed the screenplay, Crawford and Mercado sought to bring together mystery, comedy, coming-of-age emotion and fantasy without smoothing away the edges that made each element distinct. The film was intentionally set in the 1990s, and as Mercado explains, “It was a time before social media, smartphones and when friendships often felt more fragile and maintaining friendships took real effort.” Crawford adds: “The 90’s were our formative years, and those memories we all make during those times shape us into who we eventually become.” The result is a film rooted in Filipino iconography and propelled by the kinetic spirit of the comedies and anime that shaped the directors’ upbringings. Jo and Raissa were inspired by the women in their lives, while the film’s visual language was designed to stretch the possibilities of animation.
“For so long, animation has been put in this box, especially Western animation, where it is expected to be one thing,” Crawford says. “We really wanted to break out of that. Animation can tell any kind of story, and Januel and I set out to make an original film that felt truly original in every sense. There is broad comedy inspired by anime, but there are also cinematic, subtle, emotionally grounded moments. All of that can coexist in one movie. For Januel and me, it all feels authentic.”
DreamWorks Animation President Margie Cohn was drawn to that ambition, as well as to the emotional clarity beneath the film’s imaginative scale. “Forgotten Island is a very personal story for Joel and Januel,” Cohn says. “It is bursting with so many wonderful qualities that come directly from them: humor, of course, but also positive energy, compassion and depth. It pushes the envelope visually, but every design choice is in service of a story about the magic and power of friendship that is the heart of this film.”
To ground that magic in lived experience, Crawford, Mercado, Swift, production designer Ryan Carlson and art director Chris Grun traveled to the Philippines in spring 2025 for a 10-day research trip through the islands and Manila. During the trip, Mercado’s relatives hosted a raucous welcome party for the creative team and for Crawford’s visiting family. The gathering later inspired the going-away party Raissa’s family throws for her in the film. “The Philippines is beautiful,” Crawford says. “The culture was a huge part of what we wanted to celebrate in this movie. It is incredibly warm and welcoming, the kind of place where, if you are there, you are family. Everyone is singing, dancing, eating and drinking together. And the myths still feel very alive there. Everyone we met had a story about seeing Manananggal.”
For all its supernatural invention, Forgotten Island is ultimately grounded in a deeply human fear: that growing up can mean growing apart, and that the people who once knew us best may one day remember us differently, or not at all. Its cultural specificity gives the film texture and meaning, while its emotional questions reach far beyond any one place. “As specific as our story and our experience may be, anyone can relate to it,” Mercado says. “We all have friends, family and people we are connected to. We are all capable of making beautiful memories. At the heart of this story is friendship, the growing pains of life, the fear of being forgotten and the fragile nature of memory. Memories are valuable because they do not last forever, and that is what makes them so important.”
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