EXCLUSIVE: Award-winning songwriter Diane Warren and The Little Mermaid star Halle Bailey have teamed up on a new song for animated family sci-fi adventure The Crystal Planet, joining an already starry voice cast led by Jeremy Irons, Vanessa Redgrave, and Michael York
News of the new song – entitled ‘Somewhere We All Belong’ follows in the wake of Warren’s 17th Academy Award nomination, for ‘Dear Me’, a personal song written for her documentary Diane Warren: Relentless.
The movie, directed by Croatian multi-award-winning director Arsen Anton Ostojic, revolves around 11-year-old Rea, who has moved to a distant planet in an outer-space colony.
There she befriends a dinosaur-like cub named Burgy, who was separated from his mother by a mutant monster. As Rea attempts to reunite Burgy with his mother, she comes up against a ruthless industrialist intent on turning the creature into a robotic prototype.
News of the song was announced by Sola Media as it continues sales on the title at the EFM.
The film is based on an original screenplay by late Croatian animator Dušan Vukotić, the first non-American to win an Academy Award for animation in 1962 with the short film The Substitute.
“Diane Warren’s new song captures the emotional heart of The Crystal Planet in a truly powerful way,” said Ostojic. “Her music, combined with Halle Bailey’s voice, adds a timeless, universal quality that deepens the story and strengthens its message about compassion, coexistence, and finding where you belong.”
Solveig Langeland, Managing Director of Sola Media, added: “Diane Warren has an extraordinary ability to create songs that resonate across cultures and generations. Paired with Halle Bailey’s performance, this new song elevates The Crystal Planet as a cinematic family experience and further reinforces its appeal for the global market.”
Production is led by Filmosaurus Rex, BFilm, and Alkay Animation Prague, one of the Czech Republic’s leading animation studios. Animation is supervised by Jakub Pištecký, whose credits include Rango, Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Avengers. Alkay Animation Prague’s recent feature My Sunny Maad won the Jury Prize at Annecy and earned a Golden Globe nomination.
The project is supported by several major European film bodies, including the Croatian Audiovisual Centre, Czech Audiovisual Fund, Slovak Audiovisual Fund, Creative Europe/MEDIA, Eurimages, Czech Television, and Croatian Television.