Variety is reporting that DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg will unveil DWA’s slate through late 2012 for the investment community in Gotham today, which includes five original projects and a handful of franchise follow-ups. All pics will be produced in 3-D.
Coming in 2010
How to Train Your Dragon will be written and directed by Chris Sanders and Den DeBlois and produced by Bonnie Arnold. It stars Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, America Ferrera and Johan Hill. Set in the world of Vikings and dragons, it centers on an awkward teen who befriends an injured dragon. Dragon will fire breathe its way into theaters on March 26, 2010.
A fourth installment in the Shrek series (now titled Shrek Forever After) is being readied for a May 21, 2010 release. Shrek Forever After is directed by Mike Mitchell, produced by Teresa Cheng and Gina Shay and exec produced by Aron Warner and Andrew Adamson.
The last title is another original property called Oobermind. Robert Downey Jr. and Tina Fey are among the cast. Downey will voice a supervillain who finds life a little dull after vanquishing good-guy rival Metro Man. The superhero-themed film, based on a spec script (previously called “Master Mind”) from Ben Stiller’s Red Hour Films, will open Nov. 5, 2010.
Coming in 2011
The following year brings two projects. For the first, the company confirmed signing Jack Black and Dustin Hoffman for Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom of Doom, due out June 3, 2011. Longtime story exec Jennifer Yuh Nelson makes her feature directorial debut.
In its Nov. 4 slot, DreamWorks Animation has The Guardians, turning to a not-yet-published book series from kidlit-to-toon titan William Joyce, whose work has previously inspired Disney’s Meet the Robinsons and Rolie Polie Olie. Jeff Lynch attached to direct the film, which unites characters every child knows — Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Jack Frost and the Sandman — to defend the world from a Bogeyman-like villain.
Coming in 2012
The following year gets crowded once again, as Puss in Boots imagines events before the popular character’s appearance in Shrek 2, while introducing all-new characters. Antonio Banderas returns, and Salma Hayek will lend her voice to love interest Kitty. Shrek the Third helmer Chris Miller is onboard to direct, with the film slated for March 30, 2012.
Just two months later, Madagascar helmer Eric Darnell offers up a third installment in the zoo-break series, which would relocate the critters from Africa to Europe via a traveling circus. Mireille Soria and Mark Swift produce.
Katzenberg has staked out a third date that fall, Nov. 12, for an original feature, to be chosen from a trio of projects currently in development.
The first option, caveman comedy The Croods, from directors Chris Sanders and Kirk DeMicco, was once intended to be an Aardman collaboration. Another, Truckers, is derived from Terry Pratchett’s The Bromeliad Trilogy, with Simon Beaufoy adapting a story of miniature creatures stuck living in a department store.
Damaschke also cited a third option, tentatively titled Super Secret Ghost Project, that asks what ghosts think about humans.
Source: Variety
