Never BornFILM & TV

Larrikins

DreamWorks cancelled an Australian musical after years of story, songs and animation work, leaving its creators to share only fragments.

HOW CLOSE TO REALITY70/100
CATEGORYFilm & TV
LIFECYCLE2013—2017
00

Quick facts

Existence state
Never Born
Peak stage
full production started
Research confidence
high
Last verified
01

What it was

An Australian-set animated musical comedy developed at DreamWorks Animation and directed by Tim Minchin and Chris Miller.

The production developed characters, music, voice casting and animated sequences around a sheltered bilby crossing the Australian interior. It entered active feature production but did not reach release.

02

Existence timeline

Project develops

DreamWorks begins work on the Australian animated musical.

Director and music announced

Tim Minchin publicly joins the production's creative leadership.

Feature production

Casting, animation and music work advance.

Film cancelled

DreamWorks removes the project from its slate.

Fragments shared

Artists and creators release limited examples of the unfinished work.

03

Why it ended

DreamWorks cancelled the film in 2017 during changes to its production slate after the Comcast acquisition.

04

Last confirmed trace

Concept art, demo music, animation clips and accounts from former crew members preserve the project.
05

What it left behind

For Australian artists and audiences, the cancellation became a high-profile loss of a rare studio feature designed around local animals, landscapes and voices.

06

How we classified it

The proposed archive unit never reached ordinary public access in the form being documented.

The strongest verified milestone maps to full_production_started under Arrival Score V1.

07

Sources & verification

Last reviewed 2026-08-01. Sources are linked so readers can inspect the evidence directly.

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