Sony declares 'Open' season on toon rivalry
Co-directors Culton, Stacchi nab thesp trio for project
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A year and a half after Sony Pictures Animation set up shop, the company has greenlit "Open Season" as its first toon.
Martin Lawrence, Ashton Kutcher and Debra Messing will lend their voices to the computer-generated comedy, planned for a 2006 release.
"Open Season" tells the story of a 900-pound domesticated grizzly bear named Boog (Lawrence) and a scrawny, one-horned mule deer named Elliot (Kutcher) who are stranded together in the woods during hunting season. It's up to the duo to rally all the other forest animals and turn the tables on the hunters.
Messing (NBC's "Will & Grace") will voice a forest ranger who rescued Boog as a cub and raised him.
"I think the film is going to be really funny," said Yair Landau, vice-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment and prexy of Sony Pictures Digital. "It's got great voices, a great story, and we've got some really talented animators and great technology."
Since its formation, Sony Pictures Animation has been developing a slate of different pics at the same time, including a full-length version of its Oscar-winning short film "The ChubbChubbs." But Landau said "Open Season" was selected because the pic's story and characters were the first to gel.
Division is hoping to release an animated film every 12 to 18 months, making Sony another major supplier of animated films in Hollywood, alongside Disney, DreamWorks and Fox.
"When we put the reel up in animation and looked at it, we had a lot of feedback," Landau said. "We really nailed the charac-ters and stories, which advanced things in a huge way. That accelerated our process and brought it to the top of the list."
"Open Season" is inspired by the humor of syndicated cartoonist Steve Moore ("In the Bleachers"), who will exec produce with John Carls.
Jill Culton will direct, with Anthony Stacchi as co-director.
Culton is credited with the original story for "Monsters, Inc.," for which she was also head of story development and concep-tual artist. She was also on the story team for "Toy Story 2." Other credits include "A Bug's Life," "Cats Don't Dance" and "Toy Story."
Special effects studio Sony Pictures Imageworks will provide the majority of the film's computer animation.
Shop is busy tackling the CGI animation for the adaptation of the children's book "The Polar Express," being directed by Robert Zemeckis, as well as "Spider-Man 2."
SPA, which is a division of Sony Pictures Digital, was established in May 2002 and is led by exec VPs Sandra Rabins and Penney Finkelman Cox, former heads of DreamWorks Animation.
(Marc Graser contributed to this report.)
