First Trailer for The Little Prince Starring Jeff Bridges, Rachel McAdams and Mackenzie Foy

Posted on April 22, 2015

The first trailer for the animated feature film version of Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince has been released by Paramount Pictures. The book tells the story of an Aviator who crash lands in the Sahara, without any food or water.

He meets a young boy, the Little Prince. The Little Prince is an alien from an asteroid who ran away from his rose, who was getting annoying. He visited other planets and found the grown ups there to be extremely odd. When he lands on Earth he meets a Fox and then a Snake, who both teach him valuable lessons. He shares his new wisdom with the pilot. He now realizes that he really missed his Rose.

The simple story told in the book is merely the first layer: there are many lessons in the book that the Little Prince learns in his travels: the dangers of narrow-mindedness and bigotry, the importance of love and that what is most important in life is that which we cannot see. In order to translate the book into a film that American children can see and understand, director Mark Osborne (Kung Fu Panda) chose to use a framing device.

He has added a little girl and her mother to the story. The mother is a grade A helicopter mom who has her daughter's schedule and future all mapped out for years in the future. One day a paper airplane flies into the little girl's window -- it is the story of The Little Prince. The Aviator lives next door and becomes the girl's friend. He shares the story of his adventures with the prince with her. It's a way for modern audiences to relate to a complex, very French story with a great deal of philosophy in it. From the trailer, it seems to work quite well.

The film will be released in France this fall, but the U.S. date has not yet been set. The Aviator is voiced by Jeff Bridges. Rachel McAdams is the little girl's energetic mother. The little girl is Mackenzie Foy. The Little Prince is voiced by Riley Osborne. Benicio Del Toro is the Snake, Ricky Gervais is the Conceited Man, Marion Cotillard is the Rose and James Franco is the Snake. Paul Giamatti is The Teacher.

Take a look: