How you react to news that Sony – already in production on one film based on a modern tech trend with Angry Birds – is planning one based around Emoji might depend on your age and your ‘net-savviness. So prepare to consider this OMG awesomesauce or another sign of the end times…
According to Deadline, Sony Pictures Animation won a bidding war for a pitch by director Anthony Leondis, who travelled between the studios with a batch of storyboards showing how the basic plot will play out. Sony nabbed the project and Eric Siegel is aboard to turn the idea into a script for an animated adventure.
Quite what that will be remains to be seen: at least in the case of something like Lego or the Angry Birds, you had narrative plans, characters and worlds built up. Emoji, the Japan-spawned graphical representations of faces, pets, objects and, yes, poop, wouldn’t seem to have the same initial potential, but clearly the studio thinks there’s something to Leondis’ idea.
Leondis, who directed Igor and has more recently been working on projects for DreamWorks Animation, including Kung Fu Panda short Secrets Of The Masters and the still-in-limbo B.O.O.: Bureau Of Otherworldly Operations, will get to work quickly, as it appears the Emoji have become something of a hot property, not least because unlike other product-based movies, there are no rights to secure and no huge company to look over the producers’ shoulders, worried about misrepresenting their brand.