Way back in June we had Crazy Chris Campbell informing us that Lionsgate had just purchased North American distribution rights to Happily N'Ever After, a CG-animated fairy tale spoof from the producer of Shrek -- and today we get our very first peek at the long-gestating project. ComingSoon.net is where you'll find the goods.

The plot deals with all the heroic fairy tale characters dealing with conflict from all the villains ... or something like that. (Let's give it up for characters in the public domain!) What I find most amusing is the voice cast. We got Sarah Michelle Gellar as Ella (as in Cinderella), Sigourney Weaver as an evil witch (cool!), Freddie Prinze Jr., Andy Dick, Patrick Warburton, Jon Polito, Wallace Shawn and George Carlin -- and when I say "amusing," I actually mean it. Most of those actors have pretty funny voices!

So in addition to the previously linked clip, this just-discovered teaser trailer at YouTube, and a release date of January 5, I can also inform you that both the writer and the director are first-time filmmakers. But hey, I liked Hoodwinked, so I think this flick looks pretty, well, amusing.

Emma Thompson won't be winning another adapted-screenplay Oscar for her sophomore script, but she has written a most enjoyable combo of familiar plots and themes for the film of Nanny McPhee. Based very, very loosely on Christianna Brand's Nurse Matilda books, it takes one of the most commercially trite foundations for kiddy comedies — that of the unsinkable nanny — and adds the current safe bet for family films: magic.

The result is an unnecessary but satisfying mix of light and dark comedy that should come as no surprise from Waking Ned Devine director Kirk Jones. Finally following up his loveable debut after seven years, he continues his ability to make death a pretty funny concept. Devine begins with an old man croaking suddenly after winning the lottery; McPhee tops it with six children eating a baby.