After many years of rumor and possible projects, ILM is going to make a full animated feature film called Rango for director Gore Verbinski Variety is reporting.
ILM of course worked with Verbinski on Pirates of the Caribbean and like that film the new animated film will star the voice and capture motion of Johnny Depp. As with Pirates, ILM will use motion capture technology to allow Deep to not only voice a character but also “will allow us to capture and translate every aspect of Johnny’s performance, using it to drive the computer-generated character in a way that has yet to be seen in an animated feature,” Verbinski said.
Work is set to beginning in January. For many years it has been speculated that ILM with its enormous animation talent would produce an animated film but rumored projects such as Frankenstein failed to ever be made. Yet the hope has been for some time that ILM would turn its enormous talent on the animated market, having watched the computer animation spin off from Lucas Animation -over 20 years ago, turn into the powerhouse that is PIXAR.
Variety reports that Depp will voice the lead character, a household pet that goes on an adventure to discover its true self. John Logan (“The Aviator”) has penned the script from an idea hatched by Verbinski. The Director will direct “Rango” as he continues to develop an adaptation of the bestselling video game “Bioshock” for Universal. That film is also being scripted by Logan.
The film is pencilled in for a March 2011 release.
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The trailer on apple.com rocks!
Very funny and the image is superb, especially the sunset shot with the riders and the dust.
About the animation, i like keyframe anim more but i’m curious about how far and convincing this kind of technique can reach…