Genndy Tartakovsky Opens Up on the Long Road to Netflix's R-Rated Animated Comedy Fixed: 'I Was Going to a Dark Place' — GeekTyrant
The film is about a dog on a frantic quest to have one last hurrah before an inevitable trip to the vet where he'll be nutered. The movie has been winning laughs at screenings like Annecy and Montreal's Fantasia Festival. But for Tartakovsky, getting here was a marathon filled with stops, starts, and moments of real doubt.
Best known for directing the first three Hotel Transylvania films and creating adult-oriented hits like Samurai Jack and Primal , Tartakovsky has been chasing this project since 2008. Back then, he pitched the idea to Sony Pictures Animation not as a dog-neutering comedy, but as a story about a group of friends. Tartakovsky explained:
'It started with having a group of high school friends… we make each other laugh like no one else. I wondered if I could take our dynamic, exaggerate it, caricature it and translate it into animated animal characters and make a movie about relationships.'
The 'neutering' hook came to him mid-pitch, lightning strike style.
'I go, 'What if one of them is a dog and he finds out he's going to get neutered in the morning?' And that was it. The whole room laughed, and they bought the pitch.'
The final film follows Bull, voiced by Adam Devine, who learns he's scheduled for surgery the next morning after one too many run-ins with his owner's grandma. His friends include Idris Elba as tough-talking Rocco, Fred Armisen as wannabe influencer Fetch, and Bobby Moynihan as goofy Lucky, and they rally to give him one last great night, with Bull's dream girl Honey (voiced by Kathryn Hahn) as his ultimate goal.
While Tartakovsky originally envisioned Fixed for the big screen, the road to get it made was a twisted one. Studios wavered, rewrites piled up, and adult animation still wasn't a big market in 2008. Even after Warner Bros. planned a theatrical release for August 2024, the film was dropped during corporate cost-cutting.
'The business changed and then they didn't want to release it… I thought, well, we've got a finished movie, there's no questioning it anymore… and then nobody liked it, or rather… they didn't see it as a business.'
When Netflix initially passed in 2024, things got bleak.
'I was going to a dark place… you start to question yourself. Did I make something I don't think I made? Are people seeing it differently than the way I see it?'
The turnaround came in January when Netflix came back for the film.
'My understanding is that John Derderian, who runs Netflix series animation, saw the film, loved it and pushed it through.'
Now, with Fixed premiering on the streamer, Tartakovsky sees it as a test for adult-oriented animated features in the U.S.
'Comedy is hard… adults are even harder because they're more judgy. If it's successful and opens the door for more of it, whether that's a sequel or something else that is R-rated, that would be incredible.'
Despite the struggles, Tartakovsky remains passionate about pushing animation beyond the family-friendly formula.
'We have all these adult series, but features are pretty much this Disney, DreamWorks, Pixar, Marvel model… there are very few things that are different. We should be as different as live action.'
Fixed is hand-drawn, unapologetically adult, and born from years of persistence, and it's finally ready to find its audience. For Tartakovsky, the journey wasn't just about getting a movie made, but about proving there's space for bold, unique animated storytelling.
Source: Deadline
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