At first it almost sounded like a late April Fool, but Disney has spun its big giant wheel of Animated Icons To Convert To Live-Action Adventures and the pointer has reached Winnie The Pooh. According to Deadline, the Mouse House is looking to give the residents of Hundred Acre Wood a new lease on life.
In addition to Disney’s current push to convert a lot of its cartoon characters – Maleficent, Cinderella, Alice In Wonderland, and the upcoming** Pete’s Dragon** and Dumbo – this feels a little like the company seeing the success of Paddington and wondering whether their own beloved bear, adapted from AA Milne’s stories, could enjoy similar CG life in the cinema.
Alex Ross Perry, who won praise for his indie comedy drama Listen Up Phillip, which stars Jason Schwartzman as an arrogant, self-obsessed novelist, has been hired to develop the new film, an interesting wrinkle, but one that has precedent with the studio, which set** Ain’t Them Bodies Saints** writer/director David Lowery to work on Pete’s Dragon.
Naturally, given how early this one is in development, there are no details on plot, but we’d expect Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore and the rest to be present and correct. Will they work as CG characters rubbing shoulders with actual humans? Looks like we’ll find out…