chicken run Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Mark Burton has been hired by Warner Bros. to write the feature film adaptation of James Turner's comic book Rex Libris. The comic is about "an everyday guy who becomes part of a secret sect of librarians who battle forces of darkness in chasing down overdue or stolen books." Seriously! The "comedic action-adventure" will focus on head librarian Rex Libris, a man "who must protect the world's knowledge and most dangerous secrets from falling into the wrong hands." When a squad of punks storm the library and remove a certain card from the catalog, the library's walls collapse and a secret stack of books is revealed, which apparently leads the crew on a string of global and intergalactic adventures. I've said it before and I'll say it again: You don't mess with the Dewey Decimal System.

Rex and the other librarians have a huge array of high-tech weapons, but they are also helped by an ancient god who lives underneath the library. Geez, haven't we seen this story enough? Variety doesn't mention whether the film will be animated or live action, but Burton wrote Madagascar and worked on Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, so using context clues I'm assuming it'll be a cartoon. Hopefully they don't try to sneak in some message about how kids should read and use their imaginations and crap like that. I've got to tell you, reading the synopsis, I thought of the perfect man to join Rex's team: Bookman, the Library Cop from Seinfeld! "I don't judge a man by the length of his hair or the kind of music he listens to. Rock was never my bag. But you put on a pair of shoes when you walk into the New York Public Library, fella!"

Because there is still good in this world, it has taken only about three months for Aardman Animation to find a new partnership in Hollywood. The animation studio, which DreamWorks mistakenly flushed away back in January, has a new deal with Sony, and it sounds like it will be a much better team-up for the Aardman gang than their last. Reportedly, Aardman will not face the same sort of assimilation it faced at DreamWorks, where its most recent picture, Flushed Away, suffered from too much Hollywoodization. Instead, it is expected to produce a new title every 18 months, each with different budgets and some being made with CGI (as opposed to the studio's signature claymation style), all with less restriction from Sony and all based out of Aardman's home base in Bristol rather than out of Hollywood. The deal is presently set at a three year agreement, but Sony seems hopeful about the partnership lasting a long time.

Sony should benefit just as much from the deal, which will increase its output of animated films. The studio recently got into the competitive animation market full force, and so far with Monster House and Open Season it has only been performing so-so (its next release is Surfs Up, coming out June 8). Aardman will be bringing familiar characters to the table, though, with confirmed new Wallace & Gromit features. The Aardman name is also a fairly known brand around the world, which should prove profitable for overseas distribution (which Sony seems to appreciate even more than others). The partnership already has four projects in the works -- they obvioulsy aren't wasting any time -- but we are still probably a few years away from seeing the first collaboration (I'm hoping one is the animated mockumentary Tortoise vs. Hare). Although I wish Sony could now grab Crood Awakening, which had originated as an Aardman project, away from DreamWorks, I am otherwise really happy about this partnership. I may even be happier than Wallace at a cheese buffet.

Everyone knew it was coming. Following the disappointing box office of Flushed Away, there was speculation that it would happen. And now it is certain: Dreamworks has cut Aardman Animation loose. Sadly, the studio is now also citing the weak performance of the Oscar-winning Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit as an added reason for the end of the partnership. Aside from winning prestigious awards, that film made more than $192 million worldwide (actually, only $20 million more than Flushed Away). I guess when you're used to Shrek 2-size figures ($920 million), though, a lot of numbers look small.

I'm not too worried about Aardman. They were doing amazing work before the Dreamworks deal, and they'll do amazing work after. The animation studio still has a thing going with CBS, which is sitting on seven episodes of a Creature Comforts series, which I think is based on Nick Park's Oscar-winning short. However, there may not be any features from Aardman for awhile. I was very upset to learn that Crood Awakening, which was co-written by John Cleese and was to be the next Aardman feature, is being left behind at Dreamworks, where it will presumably be shelved for good. I'm sure that Dreamworks is hoping the Shrek movies will never lose their steam, but I just can't believe that there's much more to do with those characters.

Dreamworks isn't too happy with the box office performance of Flushed Away, the new computer-animated film released by the studio as part of its deal with Aardman Animation. The picture has only made about $41 million in the U.S. since it opened two weeks ago, and it isn't likely to come anywhere close to recouping its cost of $149 million. Variety is reporting that the studio will take a "an unspecified write-down" on the film. I'm not good with financial jargon, and I don't understand what this exactly means, but it is something kind of like a tax write-off, only partial. If anyone can explain it better in layman's terms, by all means, leave me a comment.

The part of this news that is easier to comprehend, and a little more unfortunate, is the possibility that Dreamworks will now drop its deal with Aardman. Flushed Away is the third Aardman picture co-produced by Dreamworks. The first two were Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, both of which performed much better. The next Aardman feature, Crood Awakening, which is being co-written by John Cleese, will likely have to be distributed by someone else. This is a shame, because although I haven't yet seen Flushed Away, I imagine it is better than Shrek the Third, which will make Dreamworks a whole ton of money when it's released next Spring.