Mark Osborne
Director - THE LITTLE PRINCE
Two time Academy Award®-nominated director Mark Osborne has been telling stories
with animation and live-action for more than twenty-five years.
Currently, Osborne is co-writing and developing several new feature film projects for
animation including a trilogy of films based on BONE, Jeff’s Smith’s seminal comic book
series.
Osborne more recently directed and Executive Produced the first-ever animated feature
film adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s beloved classic, The Little Prince, which
was released in the U.S. theatrically and on Netflix. Among the film’s accolades, it
premiered Out of Competition at the Cannes Film Festival going on to be being a
international box office hit and garnering acclaim worldwide including winning the 2016
French Cesar Film Award for Best Animated Feature. The film feature an impressive
voice cast including Jeff Bridges, Rachel McAdams, Mackenzie Foy, James Franco,
Marion Cotillard, Benicio Del Toro, Ricky Gervais, Albert Brooks and introducing Riley
Osborne.
The long, rewarding journey to adapt Saint-Exupéry’s classic work into a modern
animated film began over eight years ago when French producers Aton Soumache,
Dimitri Rassam and Alexis Vonard got the go-ahead from Olivier D'Agay, president of
the Saint-Exupéry Estate, to develop a theatrical feature based on the 1942 novella. In
2009, it was Osborne’s personal connection to The Little Prince and vision for bringing
the story to the screen which led the film into production. Osborne and his family
moved to Paris where working with a team of artists, he began the process of making a
film which features CGI and stop-motion that is visually unique for an animated feature.
Osborne’s breakout was DreamWorks’ critically acclaimed animated box office hit,
“Kung Fu Panda,” which premiered Out of Competition at the 2008 Cannes Film
Festival going on to receive an Academy Award®-nomination for Best Animated
Feature. Among Osborne’s other credits include the animated stop-motion short film,
“More,” which received an Academy Award®-nomination for Best Animated Short Film,
a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and an Annie Award-nomination.
Osborne has also worked in live-action including the independent feature film written by
and starring Osborne’s brother Kent, “Dropping Out,” which premiered at the Sundance
Film Festival in 2000. Additional live-action directing credits include the popular
animated TV series, “Spongebob Squarepants” featuring Patchy the Pirate and all of the
live-action sequences for “The Spongebob Squarepants Movie.”
During Osborne‘s career he was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in
2004, as well as awards for designing and producing graphics and animation for
television including projects for TBS, E! Entertainment Television, The Cartoon Network,
Nickelodeon, and the Grammy-nominated Weird Al Yankovic spoof of Jurassic Park.
Osborne studied foundation art at New York’s Pratt Institute before earning his BFA in
experimental animation from the California Institute of the Arts. In 1997, Osborne
returned to CalArts to teach Advanced Filmmaking Techniques and has since given
lectures and taught on the subject of animation worldwide including Tokyo, China, Italy,
Norway, Canada, Mexico and all over the U.S.