Alex Woo’s animation credits include Wall-E, Incredibles 2, and The Venture Bros., and this year, audiences will get to see his animated feature film directorial debut for Netflix’s In Your Dreams. The film follows two siblings on an adventure inside dreams as they try to find The Sandman. It features the voices of Craig Robinson (The Bad Guys), Simu Liu (Barbie, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings), and Cristin Milioti (HBO Max’s Penguin, How I Met Your Mother).

Netflix released the official teaser trailer during Annecy Film Festival, the annual event that celebrates the best of international animation.

In Your Dreams was a project that started 10 years ago when Woo left Pixar to start Kuku Studios. He spent the first year dreaming up ideas for movies and TV shows that he wanted to see in the world that he felt weren’t being made. One of the first ideas was In Your Dreams.

“Dreams have always fascinated me,” Woo said during a sneak peek preview event in Los Angeles on June 5. “I’ve always wondered, ‘Why do we have them? What are they for? What are they trying to tell us?’ And so this movie allowed me to answer those questions and explore those questions in the most fun and fantastical ways that I can imagine.”

Voicing the siblings are Jolie Hoang-Rappaport as Stevie, the older sister, and Elias Janssen as Elliot, the younger brother.

“So the film we go into some surreal dreamscapes,” Woo explained. “We have spectacular visuals and we meet some out-of-this-world characters. But the heart of the film is really about two siblings who are trying to keep their family together. So one day, Steve and Elliot, who are the stars of our movie, they stumble onto a magical book about the legend of the Sandman, who promises to make their dreams come true if they can find them in the dream world.”

The Sandman is a mythical being originating from Germanic and Scandinavian folklore that has inspired the song “Mr. Sandman” by Pat Ballard, which was featured in Back to the Future and used The Four Aces version. It also spawned the DC Comics series and the Netflix series.

“It was the origin story of why we have dreams,” Woo said of the inspiration. “So what we did was we extended that and said, ‘Well, what if we could find something in the dream world. You could make your dreams come true, and then suddenly, you can have something in the dream world affect the real world.’ And that’s how we connected those two realities and then gave the film stakes. It was like a great plot device. That’s what really drew me to the Sandman. One of my favorite movies in the world is Back to the Future, and that song is used in that movie. So there’s a secret homage to that film for me with the Sandman in that song.”

About In Your Dreams

Synopsis: In Your Dreams is a comedy adventure about Stevie and her brother Elliot who journey into the absurd landscape of their own dreams. If the siblings can withstand a snarky stuffed giraffe, zombie breakfast foods, and the queen of nightmares, the Sandman will grant them their ultimate dream come true…the perfect family.

The film is directed by Alex Woo, co-directed by Erik Benson, and written by Benson and Woo from a story by Woo and Stanley Moore. The film is produced by Timothy Hahn and Gregg Taylor. John Debney (The Passion of the Christ, Hocus Pocus) is the film’s composer.

The voice cast is Jolie Hoang-Rappaport, Elias Janssen, Craig Robinson, Simu Liu, Cristin Milioti, Omid Djalili, Gia Carides, SungWon Cho, and Zachary Noah Piser.

The animation studios are Kuku Studios and Sony Pictures Imageworks.

In Your Dreams premiers November 14, 2025, on Netflix.