While toy-based IPs have been making a lot of bank at the box office this year, DreamWorks Animation has been busy prepping one more blockbuster contender as the year draws to a close.

Trolls Band Together continues the franchise’s focus on telling music-driven stories, but this pic is looking to stand out by tapping into a perennially hot musical commodity: the boy band. 

“Somehow, boy bands are able to cut through all the noise and make you feel like they are singing right to you,” says Gina Shay, Trolls Band Together‘s producer. And since every generation from baby boomers to Gen Alpha has experienced its own version of boy band mania, it’s a perfect thematic ingredient to boost co-viewing appeal. 

While Band Together is officially premiering in US theaters on November 17, NBCU began screening it two weeks ago in select EMEA and Latin American markets, where it has already racked up more than US$59 million in ticket sales. 

Trolls Band Together is on track to have a domestic opening in the range of US$21 million to US$31 million this week, according to Box Office Pro.

The Trolls franchise has been around for decades, stretching back to its 1959 introduction as a toy line called Good Luck Trolls. But since DreamWorks bought the IP in 2013 and moved it into films (Trolls premiered in 2016), it has developed a lucrative second life. 

The first Trolls movie grossed US$346 million globally against a budget of US$125 million, but 2020’s Trolls World Tour sequel had a hybrid release in theaters and digital rental during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, it only took three weeks for the second pic to generate almost US$100 million in digital rentals.

Trolls has also generated nearly five billion total views across all of its YouTube channels. And DreamWorks has been parlaying the new boy band film into L&M deals for tentpole categories like toys, but also more unique partnerships such as one with Southwest Airlines for a Trolls-branded commercial aircraft.

A lot of this early success comes from having Justin Timberlake—a former member of boy band *NSYNC from 1995 to 2002—as the executive music producer and a voice actor in the film. “He brought an authenticity to this story that nobody else could,” says Shay. 

Aside from reuniting *NSYNC after nearly two decades for a song on the movie’s soundtrack called “Better Place” (an idea he brought to the table back in January), Timberlake also shaped a key musical medley sequence that Shay calls a “history of boy band music” for kids that doubles as a walk down memory lane for parents.

The film taps into a multi-generational theme of boy bands and quirky self-referential humor to appeal to a wide audience. (Image courtesy: DreamWorks Animation)

For an extra dose of authenticity, DreamWorks also worked closely with Timberlake’s choreographers, Marty Kudelka and AJ Harpold, to design the boy band-inspired dance routines for the Trolls on screen. They have plenty of experience choreographing pop acts like One Direction, Backstreet Boys and Joe Jonas.

Meanwhile, in the writers’ room, a boy band-centric plot meant weaving pop-culture references into numerous scenes. Shay’s team honed a meta style of humor for the films to appeal to both young and older viewers. In one example that’s heavy with pop-culture references, a character exclaims: “We’re out of sync. We’ve gone from boys to men, and now there’s only one direction for us to go…the backstreets.” 

“Kids are drawn to physical humor, and adults are drawn to the way the characters react to situations,” notes Shay. The challenge for the writers on Band Together was to blend these two comedy styles without alienating either group. 

“Meta humor works on both levels, but I think it works best when kids are laughing for different reasons than the adults are.” In one example in the film, the character Poppy finds an old picture of her boyfriend Branch with curly hair, from his younger days in the Trolls boy band Brozone. “It’s a funny image for kids because they have never seen Branch with that hair. But parents are laughing because they remember Justin Timberlake was known for his tight curls back in the day.”