‘Croods’ Director Joel Crawford Explores Human Connections in ‘A New Age’

The COVID-19 pandemic ravaged 2020 movie making and film going. Yet, all wasn’t lost for certain types of productions. Animated features largely kept their stride and adapted to working on product at home with relative ease. That was the case for Joel Crawford’s directorial debut The Croods: A New Age, which was recently Golden Globe-nominated for Best Animated Feature. When looking back on the experience, Crawford learned an incredibly important lesson that he will carry forward into future projects: just roll with it.

“I had some great advice coming onto the movie from another director, Walt Dohrn (Trolls World Tour), who has been a mentor to me at DreamWorks. He said that you don’t have to have all the answers. You have talented specialists in every department whether it be cinematography, lighting, editing,” Crawford shared, “and just know what the story is and let everybody solve the problems with you. That really stuck with me.”

Relying on that camaraderie during the filmmaking process helped the team smoothly transition from the office-based environment to the new normal of working at home. Crawford realized that the constant connectivity through available technology helped avoid an overwhelming sense of loneliness.

The naturally collaborative relationships inherent within the world of animation kept the The Croods: A New Age on track.

“That’s what really carried me through it: just relying on a very talented team. The great thing about animation is it’s incredibly collaborative already, but it made me appreciate the talented crew even more through this process,” Crawford explained.

Audiences reacted in kind. Despite theaters at reduced capacity, The Croods: A New Age opened at number one and has grossed over $150 million worldwide since then. That number remains impressive when considering it also played on home VOD.

But box office numbers aside, the project remains a personal one for director Crawford.

Through the film, he explored several personally resonant themes. Built into The Croods franchise is a fear of the unknown, something that most humans experience. A New Age expands that as the central family interacts with a slightly evolved prehistoric family, The Bettermans, voiced by Game of Thrones Emmy-winner Peter Dinklage, Leslie Mann and Raya and the Last Dragon star Kelly Marie Tran. Overcoming that fear, in Crawford’s eyes, leads to true evolution.

Another key theme of the film is one of human connection, something that feels incredibly foreign to modern audiences today. In the film, the Croods seek to stay together, often sleeping in a giant pile of bodies, seeking comfort from the physical sensation. While Crawford can’t directly relate to sleeping in an actual pile of people, he does have close connectivity to the theme.

“I come from a family of four kids, and we always lived in apartments. At one point, my cousin moved in with us, and I was living in the walk-in closet. It was just everybody on top of each other,” Crawford laughed. “But one of the cool things when we were bumping into each other, there was friction there. Friction is not always positive, but it’s a connection. For us, that was something that was really important. So that was the big theme that we wanted to continue throughout this story – to celebrate togetherness.”

Another major evolution in A New Age is the celebration of female empowerment. In the film, Grug Croods (Nicholas Cage) and Phil Betterman (Dinklage) are captured by a hoard of Punch Monkeys – yes, monkeys that punch. The remaining female family members come together, put their differences aside, and assemble to rescue the men. In doing so, they form something of a prehistoric superhero group called the Thunder Sisters.

Yes, the sequence is about female empowerment, but on a larger level, it furthers the film’s overall theme of human connectivity, according to Crawford.

“The story, besides being about gender roles, when you boil it down is about finding the human connection with each other and the different ways to bond. With the women, we explored the story of sisterhood and different ways to find a connection. They’re redefining their packs, their families, and these cliques that, as humans, sometimes we can’t help but put ourselves in.” Crawford said. “That was really the goal with the Thunder Sisters — more to show that we had these two opposing sides of women from both families that put all their differences aside and came together.”

That’s a prehistoric lesson that hopefully resonated with modern day audiences.