Way, way early this year, it was announced that WB is developing a TOM AND JERRY Movie (nope, it will not be fully animated like the 1992 version) it will be a mix of CG and live action like Alvin and The Chipmunks and Marmaduke. The movie plot is said to center around how Tom and Jerry first meet and form their rivalry before getting lost in Chicago and reluctantly working together during an arduous journey home. And also in development is the big screen version of BONE based on the comic book series by Jeff Smith. Sadly I’m not familiar with these books or the characters so I can’t really get excited about BONE at this point but Collider talked with producer Dan Lin (Terminator Salvation) who’s attached to these two projects and revealed some details…
Regarding TOM AND JERRY, Lin says they’re still following the plan of making it hybrid (mix of CG and live action) but it will be a “different tone” with CGI creations of the cat and mouse and as far as whether the movie would have the same level of violence displayed in the beloved classic cartoon…
well I’ll know better through the filmmaking process. Some we’re trying to retain some of the original what we call “cartoon violence”. There’s no blood. There’s a lot of laughing involved and you’re amazed at what you can do with music. So we really want to retain the spirit of the original Tom and Jerry. We’ll see how that changes as we go through the filmmaking process and also the MPAA process.
I’m sure it’d be a different case if the issue at hand were Itchy and Scratchy or Ren and Stimpy.
Regarding BONE, Lin said they have an Australian writer Justin Monjo in charge of the script…
Justin Monjo an Australian writer is writing the script. I’m producing it with Animalogic, who did Happy Feet and Guardians of Ga’Hoole. They’ve done a test of what the movie will look like and it looks amazing. It really looks like a mix of Shrek as far as the three Bone characters and their comedy, their Looney Tunes or Marx Brothers comedy set in a Lord of the Rings world. Justin Monjo is writing the script. We’ve met with several directors and we hope to come to a director decision by January and Jeff Smith has been very intricately involved in the development process with us.
I really gotta start checking out all these BONE books and find out what the buzz is all about.
