“David,” an animated musical about, yes, the shepherd boy who killed Goliath, lands in theaters nationwide today following the blockbuster “Young David” live action series. But that’s just the start.

“We went beyond Goliath and young David,” co-director and co-writer Phil Cunningham said on a virtual interview from his South Africa base, joined by Brent Dawes, his co-writer and co-director. “We’re actually covering the whole span of David’s life, from shepherd boy to king.”

“The Goliath story one knows well,” Dawes noted. “But there was so much more to explore after Goliath. What’s really interesting about David as a character is that he’s so flawed, like all of us.

“He speaks about his fear, his questions. He makes mistakes. But he keeps on going. What’s inspiring is that he holds nothing back and lives a very adventurous life.

“But this isn’t about David versus Goliath. It’s a story about two anointed kings – Saul and David – with contrasting leadership styles.

“One operates out of fear and control and David, with just faith. Going beyond Goliath helped us make it much more rich and also more relevant.”

“And it wasn’t always meant to be an animated musical,” Dawes added. “Phil’s original idea was to make it live action, like a ‘Gladiator’ or ‘Braveheart.’ It was only 11 years ago that we decided to make it animated.

“What was cool for me was when Phil said, ‘Animation.’ That really opened it up to be a musical. To me what’s wonderful about this story is that there’s a reason for songs to be in the movie. David calls himself, Israel’s singer of songs.

“The whole reason that he is in King Saul’s throne room was because he was called to play music to soothe Saul’s spirit. Music was always going to be an integral part.

“That always felt like that’s what the movie needed. It’s an epic story that’s lasted 3,000 years. An important story to billions of people worldwide.

“This was always intended to be a spectacle, an epic. It was never small.”

“The vision was always big,” Cunningham agreed. “It didn’t ‘grow’ — it’s what we set out to do. But we had lots of stopping and starting along the way, lots of setbacks. But the vision was always there.”

“Close to 500 people,” Dawes said, “worked on the project in over 32 countries around the world. Just to give you a sense of how global the team was, although the main studio’s in South Africa, we worked with people all over the world. There were guys who were 20 years at Pixar, 20 years at DreamWorks, for example, who joined the team.”