Partner to Raise Money for Kids with Special Needs
For Immediate Release For More Information:
October 23, 2019 Erica Lopez
323.954.0820
Universal Pictures, DreamWorks Animation and Variety — the Children’s Charity
Partner to Raise Money for Kids with Special Needs
Proceeds from TROLLS WORLD TOUR Gold Heart Pins will help fund life-changing Variety programs
LOS ANGELES, CA – Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Animation have collaborated with Variety – the Children’s Charity to create limited-edition gold heart pins featuring characters from DreamWorks Animation’s highly anticipated new film, Trolls World Tour, which arrives in theaters April 17, 2020. Proceeds from the pins will benefit Variety programs that provide life-changing equipment, services, and experiences to children who have special needs or who are disadvantaged.
The collector’s item pin, which features the beloved Trolls characters Poppy (voiced by Anna Kendrick in the film) and Branch (voiced by Justin Timberlake), will be available for a minimum donation of $3.00 in movie theatres nationwide from November 2019 to May 2020. A full list of participating locations can be found on www.usvariety.org.
“To raise a child with a serious illness or disability costs a family four to five times more than it does to raise a child not living with one or more of these conditions,” said Erica Lopez, executive director of Variety – the Children’s Charity of the United States. “Each person who supports Variety can forever change the life of a child and her or his family by helping to lessen the family’s financial burden and provide every child with equality and a limitless future.”
For Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Animation, the collaboration is an ideal opportunity to help those families and the children they love. “The Trolls films celebrate friendship, love, joy, family, and the beauty and value of every person,” said John C. Hall, executive vice president of distribution and marketing for Universal Pictures. “Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Animation are proud to partner with Variety-The Children’s Charity in its vital, ongoing mission to make the lives of children with special needs, and their families, a little easier and a lot brighter.”
About Variety- The Children’s Charity
Variety – the Children’s Charity has a 91-year legacy of caring for children across the globe when family income, insurance, and the government cannot. Since its founding in 1928, Variety has grown to 41 chapters throughout the world and raised more than $1 billion to assist the treatment and care of children who have a disability or are disadvantaged. Through direct grants and programs, Variety provides the gifts of independence, self-esteem, mobility and communication; survival, recovery, well-being and health; and education, confidence and achievement for children who have a disability or are disadvantaged.
About Trolls World Tour
A member of hard-rock royalty, Queen Barb (Rachel Bloom), aided by her father King Thrash (Ozzy Osbourne), wants to destroy all other kinds of music to let rock reign supreme. With the fate of the world at stake, Poppy and Branch, along with their friends — Biggie (James Corden), Chenille (Caroline Hjelt), Satin (Aino Jawo), Cooper (Ron Funches) and Guy Diamond (Kunal Nayyar) — set out to visit all the other lands to unify the Trolls in harmony against Barb, who’s looking to upstage them all.
Cast as members of the different musical tribes is one of the largest, and most acclaimed, groups of musical talent ever assembled for an animated film. From the land of Funk are Mary J. Blige, George Clinton and Anderson .Paak. Representing Country is Kelly Clarkson as Delta Dawn, with Sam Rockwell as Hickory and Flula Borg as Dickory. J Balvin brings Reggaeton, while Ester Dean adds to the Pop tribe. Anthony Ramos brings the beat in Techno and Jamie Dornan covers smooth jazz. World-renowned conductor and violinist Gustavo Dudamel appears as Trollzart and Charlyne Yi as Pennywhistle from the land of Classical. And Kenan Thompson raps as a hip-hop newborn Troll named Tiny Diamond.
Trolls World Tour is directed by Walt Dohrn, who served as co-director on Trolls, and is produced by returning producer Gina Shay. The film is co-directed by David P. Smith and co-produced by Kelly Cooney Cilella, both of whom worked on the first Trolls.
