Maya Rudolph, Terry Crews, Martin Short, Jane Krakowski and Sean Cullen have joined the voice cast of Bron Animation's The Willoughbys which is based on Lois Lowry's 2010 popular children's book of the same name. Ricky Gervais is the film's narrator and one of the executive producers.

Rudolph will be the voice of Nanny, who looks after the Willoughby children. Crews is voicing candy mogul Commandor Melanoff, and Short and Krakowski give voice to Father and Mother Willoughby, parents so in love with each other they forget they even have children. Cullen has a duel role of voicing their twin boys Barnaby A and B.

Additional casting is currently underway on the film, which is being repped by WME Global.

The logline: The story follows the four Willoughby children – Tim, Jane and the twins who — when abandoned by their selfish parents — embark on a wild adventure through the modern world, colliding with a cat, an orphan, a nanny and a candy mogul, to reunite with the "family they were born into," only to discover along the way the value of love in the "family they choose."

The Willoughbys is being written and directed by Kris Pearn with Cory Evans co-directing, and is currently in pre-production at Bron's studio in Burnaby, BC. Bron Animation President Brenda Gilbert, Aaron L. Gilbert and Luke Carroll are producing.

Along with Gervais, Jason Cloth of Creative Wealth Media also serves as an executive producer.

The director/co-writer Pearn previously worked on films at Sony, Dreamworks, Lucas/Disney and Aardman with credits including head of story on Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, co-director of Cloudy 2, story supervisor on Arthur Christmas. He also had credits on Surf's Up, Shawn the Sheep, Home and Pirates: Band of Misfits, and has been nominated twice for Annie Awards (Open Season and Arthur Christmas).