'Trolls' kicks off Comic-Con with neon happiness and Justin Timberlake

SAN DIEGO -- With everything going on in the world, Comic-Con started in a happy place. A candy-colored, sing-songy, hourly-hugging happy place.

Trolls, the original 'toon from Dreamworks Animation, kicked off the 2016 offerings at Hall H, where Con-goers grabbed troll wigs on the way in and unabashedly stuck them on their heads for the presentation for a movie that's about, well, unabashed happiness.

"We wanted to make a movie about happiness. Where do you get it? How do you lose it?" said Mike Mitchell, who co-directed with Walt Dohrn.

The film takes place in a fuzzy, felt-covered, hand-stitched world inhabited by (mostly) optimistic trolls, who are loosely based on the ones '70s kids stuck on top of their pencils.

"We wanted that feeling of freedom and love and happiness to kind of permeate the troll society," said producer Gina Shay. "The whole thing is kind of like a crocheted blanket."

A long sizzle reel laid out the story: A group of trolls have been kidnapped by the dour, cynical (and much larger) Bergens, creatures whose only happiness comes from trolls. As in, eating them in bunches.

Voice actors Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake were on hand for Trolls, for which Timberlake produced all the music. And there is a lot of it -- the 10 minutes of footage included three full musical numbers, which will probably make up less than a third of the final track count.

"Every time I was doing music, Justin was in the booth ... and I felt like he was the guy in the movie who's back there going, 'DO IT BETTER.'"

It appears that they did -- Dreamworks showed a pivotal, all-hope-is-lost scene in which Timberlake and Kendrick duet on the Cyndi Lauper classic "True Colors." It's indeed a stirring combination.

"Reworking Simon and Garfunkel, Earth Wind and Fire, the Gorillas ... it was so much fun," Timberlake said. "But I was sold when I heard Anna (Kendrick) was in. But then I got to know her a little bit and I realized I had already signed the contract.

"But being able to help craft the story with music -- that was a dream come true."

Kendrick wasn't so sure at first about all the happiness and optimism.

"I was like ... I think you've got the wrong person," she said. "But when we did the sessions I couldn't help but be a little off, a little psychotic. ... we wanted to make her happy, but not the kind you couldn't stand for 90 minutes. She's got layers."

The November release also stars Zooey Deschanel, James Corden, John Cleese and Gwen Stefani.

Shay said one of the film's biggest priorities was body positivity -- and that bears out in what Hall H saw.

"We broke every princess rule in the book on this one," Shay said. "We kept the trolls round, shoeless ... my daughter is 11 and she has a really powerful mind, and I'd rather have her using it to be imaginative rather than obsessing in the mirror."

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.