Ed Sheeran writes song for Richard Curtis' “That Christmas” film

The August heat and the rain is boiling and glowing outside, and Ed Sheeran is thinking about Christmas. The artist announced Wednesday that he will provide a new song, “Under the Tree,” for Netflix's upcoming animated film. This Christmasbased on the children's book series by Richard Curtis (screenwriter for Love Actually, Over time). The film is directed by Simon Otto (How to train your dragon), will premiere on the streaming platform on December 6. Curtis is the co-writer of the film alongside Peter Souter.

“I've been friends with Richard Curtis for years and we had a lot of fun doing charity work. Then both of them were heavily involved in the film. Yesterday”, Sheeran said in a statement. “He came to me two years ago to play me the rough This Christmas. It was just sketches and voices, but it blew me away. So emotional, yet so heartwarmingly funny, like all of Richard Curtis' films. I find since I've had kids there's been a real lack of great animated Christmas films for kids, so I thought this would be such a great thing to make and put out into the world.”

Curtis thinks Sheeran's contribution is pretty important. “I'm SO thrilled that Ed's beautiful song is in our film,” he said (capitalized). “The film is set in Suffolk… Ed lives in Suffolk and loves it and totally understood the pitch and tone of what we were trying to do. … Even though he wasn't a friend and didn't love Suffolk, it was wonderful to have a beautiful new song from one of the greatest British songwriters of all time.”

And the songwriting will be pretty important to the film, as “Under the Tree” will take place during a particularly devastating moment in the cartoon. “The scene we wrote that song for is so heartbreaking, but so real for a lot of people spending Christmas without their loved ones for so many reasons,” Sheeran said. “I got to work on it with my older brother, which is such a rarity and a gift to work so closely with my only sibling. It felt so good to create something that my kids would watch with their uncle, and that lives in the country that they live in.”

The film's voice cast includes Brian Cox as Santa Claus, Fiona Shaw, Jodie Whittaker and Bill Nighy. They all live in an English seaside town where everything changes at Christmas. In the synopsis, Santa is teased because he makes a mistake and several turkeys inexplicably appear.