Céline Dion has a thank-you note for Paul McCartney, and it reads like a fan letter from someone who has known him for years. The five-time Grammy winner posted a short message to the Beatle on X, crediting him with bringing her “into the studio to join the cast of ‘High In The Clouds'” — the 3D animated musical built from the children’s book McCartney co-wrote in 2005.
“It means so much to me,” Dion wrote, closing with “I’m truly grateful for your generosity and friendship. With love, always, – Celine xx…” For a singer who spent three years offstage managing stiff-person syndrome, the note carries more weight than a standard casting pleasantry.
Her part in the film is not a cameo. Dion voices Sugartail, the mother of teenage squirrel Wirral, the hero who accidentally sparks a rebellion against Gretsch, a diva-owl who has outlawed music in the town to remain its only singer. Hannah Waddingham plays Gretsch; Himesh Patel, of Yesterday, plays Wirral. McCartney voices a walrus named McKenzie, and Ringo Starr, Idris Elba, Lionel Richie, Jimmy Fallon, Clémence Poésy, Pom Klementieff and Alain Chabat round out a cast that Gaumont announced in May 2025.
Dion doubles up on the project: she also leads the French-language dub alongside Omar Sy, Benjamin Lavernhe and Antoine de Caunes, voicing Sugartail in both versions.
First optioned in 2012, now penciled in for 2027
The film has been crawling toward screens for more than a decade. McCartney wrote the book with Geoff Dunbar and Philip Ardagh; it hit shelves in October 2005. Development began around 2009, Gaumont optioned it in 2012, and Netflix boarded in December 2019 with Timothy Reckart directing. Reckart has since been replaced by Toby Genkel, who made The Amazing Maurice, with a script by Paddington 2 scribe Jon Croker.
McCartney wrote and composed the original songs, Michael Giacchino — an Oscar winner for Up — is scoring, and Universal Music Group will release the soundtrack. Gaumont has pre-sold the film to Sky in the UK, Constantin in German-speaking Europe and Imagem in Latin America, while a U.S. distributor was still being sought as of the cast reveal. The current target is a 2027 release.
McCartney hasn’t been quiet about her contribution. After Dion’s comeback shows in Paris, he said he had been listening back to her recorded parts and was “blown away by it. Wow, what a talent.”
The irony is tidy: in the film, Sugartail is the character whose voice gets taken. In real life, Dion’s is the one everyone is waiting to hear again.
