McCartney blown away by Dion on High in the Clouds

The 3D animation of his 2005 children’s novel is due in France in July 2027, with a US date still open and Dion also on the soundtrack.

Paul McCartney has praised Céline Dion’s vocal contributions to High in the Clouds, the forthcoming 3D animated film adapted from his 2005 children’s novel. On 29 September 2026, after listening in the studio, he posted on Instagram that he was “blown away” by her parts. He added: “There’s so much love out there for her,” referring to her recent Paris comeback shows.

The book behind the film was co-written by McCartney with Geoff Dunbar and Philip Ardagh. Toby Genkel directs the adaptation. Jon Crocker wrote the screenplay. Dion’s involvement is not confined to the parts McCartney heard that day: she also contributes to the soundtrack.

From page to screen

High in the Clouds has taken a long time to reach the cinema. The project was announced in 2013 and moved forward in development in 2024. A release in France is set for July 2027. No United States date has been announced.

The voice cast brings together Himesh Patel, Hannah Waddingham, Idris Elba, Lionel Richie, Ringo Starr, Jimmy Fallon, Clémence Poésy, Pom Klementieff and Alain Chabat. The line-up mixes screen and music names across British, American and French credits on a story first written for younger readers and now shaped for animation.

McCartney’s public reaction places Dion’s recorded work at the centre of how he is talking about the film, while the first confirmed theatrical window is still ahead. What is fixed is the French opening in July 2027, the director and screenwriter are already named, the announced voice cast, and Dion’s dual role as performer and soundtrack contributor. What remains open is the American schedule, and with it the wider international roll-out of an adaptation that began as a children’s book more than twenty years ago and spent over a decade in the pipeline before development moved forward again in 2024.

For a station audience that lives with McCartney’s catalogue daily, the interest lies in the craft rather than the noise around it: a novelist’s source text carried into animation, a studio session that prompted an immediate public response, and a soundtrack contribution from a singer whose Paris dates he chose to salute in the same breath. The next hard date on the calendar is the French release. Until a US opening is set, that remains the clearest marker of when High in the Clouds leaves the studio and reaches an audience.