Jennifer Aniston completes cast of animated movie Storks — exclusive

Jennifer Aniston has a special delivery on the way.

EW can exclusively reveal that the actress is on board to play a mother in Storks, Warner Bros’. upcoming animated comedy about a workaholic bird and a spirited teenage girl who team up to transport a newborn baby to its rightful home.

Aniston joins an ensemble cast including Andy Samberg, Kelsey Grammer, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Ty Burrell, and Katie Crown.

PHOTOS: Meet the cast and characters of Storks

Co-directed by Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and Doug Sweetland (a veteran animator whose credits include Toy Story and Cars), Storks is set in a world where the titular avians long ago switched from delivering babies to delivering packages for an Amazon-like internet retailer called Cornerstore.

Stoller, who also wrote the script, told EW the film is in part “a love letter to parenthood,” one that was inspired by his own experiences as a father of two girls.

“It’s about the kind of blessing that kids are, which I didn’t really understand when we had our first child because it was so easy,” Stoller said. “And then the second one was so hard to have that, like, literally every single thing she does is amazing to me. So that’s kind of [the inspiration]. I mean, there aren’t scenes in fertility clinics, but the germ of the idea came from that.”

While Stoller is perhaps best known for his work on adult comedies — he wrote Sex Tape and directed both Neighbors movies — Storks represented a different sort of challenge. The goal was to deliver a family film with a sophisticated emotional center that’s also “hard funny,” he said. “Something that parents will find as fun as their kids.”

For more on the movie, check out our gallery of character posters, and come back Thursday for the debut of the first full trailer. Storks opens Sept. 23.