Paddington Bear has been headed for our cinemas for years now, ever since Harry Potter** producer David Heyman and Warner Bros. announced they had the rights back in 2007. Now we know who will be providing the voice for the CG creature: Colin Firth.
Firth will not be slipping into a performance capture leotard for the film, though he will be filmed in some capacity: “The idea is that Paddington will have something of me in his DNA,” he tells Baz Bamigboye at the Mail, “because I'm going to do some sessions wearing one of those helmets with cameras to capture my face muscles, and all that data will somehow be incorporated into the character."
All the other usual Paddington characters will be humans, including Jim Broadbent as Mr. Gruber, Julie Walters as housekeeper Mrs. Bird (shades of Mrs. Overall, perhaps?), with Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins as Mr. and Mrs. Brown.
Firth’s Railwayman co-star Nicole Kidman will also be there, playing an evil taxidermist who no doubt wants to get her formaldehyde-stained hands on our hero, the rotter.
With a script based on Michael Bond’s original stories, and directed by Bunny And The Bull’s Paul King, the new Paddington is scheduled to be with us on November 26 next year.