I was just getting over my withdrawal from Christmas, when suddenly this piece of news came about. I must admit, i’m afraid of a relapse. Back in the 60s Dr Seuss’ tales were mostly animated as TV shorts, and then came the dark ages of live-action interpretations with Ron Howard’s HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS and Mike Myers as CAT IN THE HAT. More recently we’ve seen the world of Seuss represented in CG animation with the likes of HORTON HEARS A WHO and THE LORAX (my least favourite film of last year). So at the risk of seeming as though they have zero ideas left, HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHROSTMAS is to get the feature length animated treatment.
Universal and Illumination Entertainment, the guys behind DESPICABLE ME, are producing while Peter Candeland is going to direct. This will be Candeland’s cinematic directorial debut after years of working as an animator on thelikes of BALTO and the animated series ALADDIN and BONKERS. He also directed the music videos for ‘Clint Eastwood’ and ‘Rock The House’ by the band Gorillaz. Thereis talk that the animated version will stay faithful to the book, which hopefully means none of that ridiculous and schmaltzy backstory. Cabdeland is currently set to take on MR. TOAD’S WILD RIDE over at Disney.
I’m very excited about this as the original animated short by Chuck Jones is an absolute must every holiday season.
Source: Variety
