Exclusive: Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken has a lot going for her.

For starters, says the film’s director Kirk DeMicco, “she’s a princess, a superhero” and the first female titular character for a DreamWorks Animation movie.

Of course, there have been female lead characters in DreamWorks animated pictures, “but this is the first time where we said the story really is hers,” adds co-director Faryn Pearl (Trolls World Tour). “We changed the title from The Gillmans to Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken because it felt that we really wanted to celebrate that it’s her story, it’s her journey. And she’s our superhero, really.”

Alfred Tennyson wrote a sonnet called “The Kraken” — “far beneath the abysmal sea,” it sleepeth — and the mythical sea creature has made terrifying guest appearances in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, the animated movie Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation...