19 Jul – Insert happy face emoji here, "The Emoji Movie" has found its lead voice actor and it comes in the form of "Deadpool" actor, T.J. Miller! Miller, whose voice credits include "How To Train Your Dragon" and "Big Hero 6", has signed on to voice the lead character, according to Variety. The actor will be voicing Gene, whose face conveys the 'meh' expression. However, a little glitch causes Gene's face to be able to express more than just 'meh'. Not wanting to be an emoji capable of multiple expressions, he will have to find a way to become "normal". News of Sony wanting to make a movie based on the emojis in smartphones was first revealed last year. Understandably, everyone's reaction to that could be well represented by a 'roll-eye' or 'gape' emoji.
However, there could very well be a market for animated movies based on phone apps or seemingly plotless games now, as proven by the recent success of "The Angry Birds Movie", which in its defense did manage to do a pretty decent big screen adaptation by weaving in the game's mechanics into the storyline. Let's not forget the success of "The Lego Movie", which has now spawned several upcoming spinoffs and sequel. Then there are also upcoming adaptations of "Tetris" (yes, that block-arranging game) and fruit-slicing game, "Fruit Ninja", though this will be in live-action. Get ready to hear Miller lend his funny voice to Gene the 'meh' emoji next year, then hear him again as Tuffnut Thorston in 2018's "How To Train Your Dragon 3" and see him in live-action next in Steven Spielberg's "Ready Player One". "The Emoji Movie" is currently undated for Cambodia but is slated for release in Singapore and Malaysia on 10 August 2017.