About eight months ago we told you a neophyte studio, Ilion, and a Spanish video game director planned to make a GC animated feature called Planet One. It turns out a studio that we’ve actually heard of, New Line, read our story (or something) and has decided to buy the rights to the in-production movie from Handmade Films. This will mark New Line’s first animated release if you don’t count the thousands of animated shots used in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
The Hollywood Reporter story also let us know that the movie is now called Planet 51, which means the movie is bound to be 51 times better than ever! The plot, written by Shrek’s Joe Stillman, is about a planet inhabited by a paranoid human-ish race that is afraid of alien invasion. When U.S. astronaut Chuck Baker lands on their planet, it sends everyone into a frenzy….of hilarity!
Although Ilion has been working on the film for almost five years, no voice actors have been cast. Director Jorge Blanco and co-directors Javier Abad and Marcos Martinez, all veterans of the video game, Commandos, are taking their time. New Line says they are planning on a 2009 release date complete with all the merchandising tie-ins we’d expect
