Mousekingdom Blog

… but not about the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise he helmed for Disney … instead in an upcoming project! Well that could be great news for Disney - after delivering treasures to Disney that even Jack Sparrow could only dream of he now joins the heart of Disney - animation. But let’s not be too fast here … because his animated feature is NOT a Disney project.

As the Hollywood Reporter announced GoreVerbinski developbed the (at this point) undisclosed idea for the animated action-adventure through his own company, Blind Wink Productions jointly with producer John B. Carls. They are supposed to be in talks with screenwriter John Logan (who just scored big with the movie script for “Sweeney Todd”, based on the Sondheim musical)  to write the script for the film. Little side note: one of the secret of early hit movies in animation was the storyboarding … so …

Anyway what else is  known about the project? Hollwyod Reporter mentions “a projected budget in the $100 million range and a targeted 2010 release”.  Third producer of the project is Graham King, who is currently financing the project’s development, that will be jointly produced by his company GK Films and Verbinski’s Blind Wink Productions - that is if it ever gets made. Tim Headington is the executive producer,David Shannon is co-producer and the film’s conceptual artist (according to the Hollywood Reporter).

The one big question (besides the story and the title - but who should bother about that remaining is: which studio will be on-board? Might it be Disney in the end? Afterall Disney did “present” outside animation projects to the public in the past, even under it’s own label as with the dismal “The Wild”. At this point nothing is sure. Graham King does have a first-look-deal with Warner Brothers regarding his projects, but anyway no studio will join the ship before the script is finished according to King - again: what about the art of storyboarding??

Let me point one important difference out to Disney’s past external projects such as “The Wild”: in case of Verbinski’s project a studio might not only be needed for the distribution but also for the production as neither King nor Verbinski have their own established animation studios hidden away, so still need a workforce of animators to realize the project. But it can never be ruled out that King and Verbinski set up their own shop. Hollywood Reporter even states “The filmmakers will decide whether to build out their own animation unit or go to an established animation house after they see a finished script.”

Right now Verbinski is said to be assembling a team of designers for the project, including visual effects specialist Mark “Crash” McCreery and head of story and storyboard artist James Ward Byrkit. Mcreery and Byrkit already were part of Verbinski’s crew for the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies.

So I guess we will have to wait a bit longer to learn whether Disney gets into this game… but I would call it highly doubtful since Disney (in its own animation unit as well as the Pixar unit) is already bussy with enough projects leading up all the way and stretching past 2010.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 1:07 pm and is filed under Disney Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.