Kirk DeMicco

Kirk DeMicco (birthname: James Kirk DeMicco) is a director and writer specializing in high-profile studio animated movies. His career started with a spec screenplay sale of (the unproduced) A Day in November in 1995, though before this he had served as an uncredited production assistant on Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and then as an assistant production coordinator on writer-director Jeffrey Bell’s Radio Inside (1994).

DeMicco’s first screenwriting credit (with credited co-writers William Schifrin, Jacqueline Feather, and David Seidler) was for Warner Bros. Feature Animation’s animated musical fantasy, Quest for Camelot (1998), which proved a box-office failure. Reuniting with Quest for Camelot director Frederik Du Chau, Kirk DeMicco co-wrote (with Du Chau, screenwriter David Schmidt, and Steven P. Wegner) and co-produced the family sports comedy, Racing Stripes (2005), with Frankie Muniz, David Spade, Steve Harvey, Snoop Dogg, Mandy Moore, Jeff Foxworthy, Joe Pantoliano, Dustin Hoffman, and Whoopi Goldberg, and grossing three times costs with a $91 million take.

DeMicco’s next screenplay credit was on the indie animated feature, Here Comes Peter Cottontail: The Movie (2005), with the voices of Tom Kenny, Christopher Lloyd, Roger Moore, Kenan Thompson, Molly Shannon, and Niecy Nash. DeMicco’s debut as director-writer was the computer-animated sci-fi comedy, Space Chimps (2008), which was produced by DeMicco’s former writing partner, Barry Sonnenfeld, and featured the voices of Andy Samberg, Cheryl Hines, Jeff Daniels, Patrick Warburton, Kristin Chenoweth, and Stanley Tucci, and grossing a good return of $65 million for distributor 20^th Century Fox.

Kirk DeMicco’s breakthrough as a writer-director (with writer-director partner Chris Sanders, as well as co-story writer and Monty Python founder John Cleese) arrived with The Croods (2013), DreamWorks Animation’s smash hit animated stone-age comedy, with the voices of Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener, Cloris Leachman, and Clark Duke, and after a Berlin film festival premiere earning a powerful $587.2 million globally and launching a franchise. DeMicco was credited as co-writer (with Sanders) of the story of the sequel, The Croods: A New Age (2020), with new voice cast members Peter Dinklage and Leslie Mann.

DeMicco’s third animated feature as director-writer (with co-writer Quiara Alegria Hudes) was Sony Pictures Animation’s well-reviewed musical comedy, Vivo (2021), with the voice cast of Lin-Manuel Miranda, Zoe Saldana, Juan de Marcos, Brian Tyree Henry, Michael Rooker, and Gloria Estefan. Having established himself as a director of successful animated comedies, Kirk DeMicco was picked by DreamWorks Animation as director of the original animation feature, Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken (2023), featuring the voices of Lana Condor, Toni Collette, Jane Fonda, Annie Murphy, and Colman Domingo.