The man who brought us The Addams Family, Get Shorty and Men in Black is leaving live action for a bit to take a test drive in his first bit of animation. The latest news from Variety is that producer/director Barry Sonnenfeld is going to produce an animated comedy called Space Chimps through Vanguard Animation and Starz Media, for 20th Century Fox to distribute. Apparently, production on this movie began last fall, and he was then helping out as a creative consultant. The project was written, and is being directed by, Kirk De Micco (Racing Stripes), and it's simply about a group of astronaut chimps who are on a mission in space -- accompanied by music from Dave Stewart and the Blue Man Group. This news is eh, whatever. It could be cute, it could be Space Jam, it could be terrible, it could be any number of things!

That being said, there's a chance for some sort of goodness considering the voice cast for the 2008 production. First, there is Jeff Daniels, the guy in everything from Terms of Endearment to Sonnenfeld's RV -- and I imagine the producer is also responsible for the other RV alum -- Cheryl Hines and Kristin Chenoweth. Then there's the SNL guy whose popularity is skyrocketing -- Andy Samberg -- who I can only hope will lend some of his music video humor to the movie, and his television cast-mate Kenan Thompson. To art things up a bit, there's the Tooch, Stanley Tucci, and then there's the quintessential man-voice. The roar of The Tick, the power behind Brock Sampson -- Patrick Warburton.

He may not be that great a director, but Barry Sonnenfeld is good enough for comedic sci-fi/fantasy fare like the Men in Black and Addams Family movies. When he doesn't have cool production design or special effects to fall back on, he tends to deliver worthless titles like Big Trouble and RV. Of course, he has exceptions: Wild Wild West was an awful effects-driven pic and Get Shorty was a great film without any fantastic elements. Still, we must be thankful that his next project deals with the supernatural. Based on the myth of Pandora's Box, the movie is simply titled The Box, and is about a directionless college graduate who is tricked into opening the infamous container, unleashing the evil out unto the world.

The script is being written by Evan Spiliotopoulos, who penned Pooh's Heffalump Movie (as well as its direct-to-video Halloween-set sequel) and has worked on scripts for other animated pics, including The Jungle Book 2, Tarzan II and Lion King 1½. For the future he's also written an animated version of The Nutty Professor, which features the voice of Jerry Lewis rather than Eddie Murphy, and the animated sci-fi film Terra. Although The Box will be a live-action "summer event film", it is likely to have a lot of the same family-friendliness as his 'toon work (though he also wrote the erotic thriller, Bare Witness). Let's just hope it is isn't as childish as The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, which is also a modern version of the Pandora myth, or as silly as Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, which deals with the box as a threatening archaeological find. It is surprising that there hasn't been a great update of the myth, actually. The Box won't be it; but it should at least be as entertaining as any Sonnenfeld effort. The director is still currently linked to the Zach Braff-co-scripted Andrew Harry's Meadow as his next project, but The Box could be his first priority, as 20th Century Fox is fast-tracking its production.

After reporting last week about plans to soon equip one-third of American cinemas with digital projectors, I received a few comments telling of disappointing encounters with the new format. It got me wanting to do some more research on the technology and the experience, and hopefully soon take in a digital showing somewhere. I haven't yet become an expert on the subject, but I did come across an interesting set of articles in Sunday's Ventura County Star, both written by Allison Bruce, which give the pros and the cons of both digital and film projectors.

Aside from the obvious factors that make digital attractive -- clearer picture, cheaper distribution -- Bruce includes an amusing comment from director Barry Sonnenfeld in which he says studios could easily change a movie that has been badly received by critics or audiences, after it has opened in theaters. He cites King Kong as a good example of a movie that would have benefited had Universal been able to cut out 40 minutes of the film after hearing that viewers complained of it being too long. I highly doubt that any studios would actually take advantage of this, though. After all, isn't that why they have test screenings?

One thing I think that hurts digital, evident from Bruce's article supporting digital, is that most of the format's pros are beneficial to studios and theaters more than to audiences. The cheaper distribution, the ease of projector use, the issues with piracy and the scheduling ideas for exhibitors are all meant to save the businesses money. But will it trickle down the savings to the consumer? No way. In fact, I see digital being used as an excuse to raise prices for the ticket buyers. Consider that the big theater chains are about to borrow a collective billion dollars. It is obvious that we, the audience, will be depended upon to pay those loans back.

Odds and ends for Thursday:

• Even though IMDB lists Zach Braff as its director, Barry Sonnenfeld is in final negotiations to helm Andrew Henry's Meadow for 20th Century Fox. Pic, which is based on the popular children's book, follows a boy inventor who escapes suburbia and travels to a meadow. There, he sets up some sort of community where he eventually teams up with other outcasts on a mission to save their parents. Braff, along with his brother Adam, originally set up the pic and developed the story while Adam wrote the script. Perhaps, since Zach is now off directing a Danish re-make, he has relinquished his director's hat.

• Who knew Catherine Zeta-Jones was so into magic. Apparently, the actress is in talks to star opposite Guy Pearce in biopic about the one and only Harry Houdini. Set in the mid-twenties, Death Defying Acts will pick up Houdini's story while he's at the height of his career, touring the country and amazing the public with his brilliant escape acts. That's right folks, David Blane has nothing on this guy. Zeta-Jones will play an exotic psychic (I wonder if that means she tells your fortune while in her underwear?) who seduces Houdini into a passionate affair.

• Well, it looks like HDNet Films is really starting to make some moves. Not long after Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban's company decided to up its budget cap from under $2 million to under $5 million (assuming the right talent was attached), comes word that Zoe Cassavetes' Broken English has wrapped up its stars and will become the latest HDNet venture to head into production. Onboard what appears to be a quirky romantic comedy about a woman lost in her 30's and looking for love, will be Parker Posey, Drea de Matteo, Gena Rowlands, Jeanne Moreau, Justin Theroux and Josh Hamilton.

Rather fascinating review of RV by Grady Hendrix over at Slate. Hendrix doesn't have much to say about it (calling it a "disaster"), but the way that Hendrix describes the movie makes it seem like there's something truly unexpected going on with the film and that it's more than just a loopy, gross-out family comedy:

"Faces, disfigured with boredom, gaze dully out over blasted landscapes. Septic hoses drip fecal matter onto the body of a middle-aged man. The sun blasts an anonymous , flat landscape interrupted only by rundown bars and empty campsites. Welcome to the world of RV ... its bleak dissection of middle-class angst and emotional depth is guaranteed to shock audiences, some of whom might even cry."

Wow, I had no desire whatsoever to see this movie (Robin Williams hasn't been funny in a long, long time), but this actually makes me want to see it. Well, maybe on DVD later this year.

The family road trip: What better way to bring the entire family together so that they might realize that all the problems they have at home are in fact infinitely worse when confined to a small space and bereft of the comforts of home? In Barry Sonnenfeld's RV, Robin Williams plays Bob Munro, an overworked-but-loving dad whose corporate job with an extreme soda company is looking a little perilous. A potential merger requires Bob's presence at a meeting in Colorado … during a period of time that's already been staked out for Bob to take his wife Jamie (Cheryl Hines), daughter Cassie (Joanna Levesque) and son Carl (Josh Hutcheson) to Hawaii. Bob's boss Todd tells him to be there or his career's pretty much over, so Bob does what any lead character in a so-so comedy would do to kickstart the plot: He lies, telling his family that instead of Hawaii, they're all going to be together and close on a trip to the beautiful spaces near Colorado in the leviathan recreational vehicle he's rented for them.

RV is a modern big-studio comedy, so the question is not if there are poop jokes in the film (which there are), but rather if the poop jokes are semi-tasteful and even vaguely artfully constructed (which they are). Sonnenfeld's been busy as of late directing big-budget, large-scale, special-effects laden films like the Men in Black movies and Wild Wild West that it's almost a pleasure simply to see him working on a slightly more human scale. It's not that there aren't special effects in RV -- there are, from stunts to CG-green screen work to make the world whizzing by the RV look so real. But by and large, this is a little film -- small scale, by the bloated and grotesque standards we've come to expect from big Hollywood's comedies as of late. And that may be part of what gives it the small appeal it has.