John Dykstra – best known as the special effects genius behind Star Wars and many other films – is making the jump to director.
He’ll helm Tortoise And Hippo for Walden Media, based on a real-life event that saw a baby hippo and a 100-year-old tortoise comforting each other at a wildlife sanctuary after being rescued from the Asian tsunami.
"It's a dream come true," Dykstra told The Hollywood Reporter. "The biggest thing to me is that having waited this long to direct a feature has provided me with an understanding of how films are made, and the critical component is collaboration. I'm really looking forward to telling this tale in the company of such a great team."
Shrek co-writer Roger SH Schulman is writing the script, but there’s no word on whether the tortoise or the hippo have been cast yet. The film will be a Babe-style mixture of live-action and photo-real animation.