Wednesday, June 17, 2015

When You're Hot ...

... you launch a new television series (to go along with your wildly successful theatrical features).

... Lego Movie duo of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are tapping into their TV animation roots with Son Of Zahn, a new animated/live action hybrid comedy, which has received a presentation order at Fox. The project, written by former Wilfred showrunners Reed Agnew and Eli Jorne, has cast its live-action male lead, with Miller and Lord recruiting young actor Johnny Pemberton, who had a supporting in their 21 Jump Street movie franchise. ...

Understand that Mr. Lord and Mr. Miller were brought in to rescue Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, which had been in development hell for eons. They had no animation experience, but they knew funny. And they turned CWACOM into Sony Picture Animation's first unalloyed hit.

I met them once or twice, and they were (are)jovial guys. By all accounts they were not infatuated with Sony management, but few SPA artists were. This became more evident when Sony e-mails got hacked and went public. Sony tried valiantly to lure them back into the corporate fold, to no avail.

Lord and Miller today have projects set up at various conglomerates, but Sony ... unless I'm misinformed ... is not one of them.


1 comments:

tbrunojr said...

This was posted in the trades on Apr 22, 2015. Got ME excited. Just sayin'.

‘Spider-Man’ Animated Movie Coming in 2018

Variety Staff

Spider-Man is going back to his graphic roots. On Thursday, Sony announced a new animated feature for the Marvel superhero from “The Lego Movie” directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller.

The movie hits theaters July 20, 2018.

Lord and Miller, the filmmaking duo behind “22 Jump Street” and “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” will write the treatment and produce the Spider-Man movie.

Sony Pictures chairman Tom Rothman made the disclosure at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. Rothman said the film will “co-exist” with the live-action Spiderman universe, but the press release clarifies: “The film will exist independently of the projects in the live-action Spider-Man universe, all of which are continuing.”

Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach and Amy Pascal are on board to produce the picture.

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