If you were secretly hoping that the surviving members of Monty Python might someday make nice and get back together to collaborate on a film, you should feel happy: they’re doing just that. But if you hoped to see them on screen, you’ll have to be satisfied with just hearing their voices, as they’re providing the vocals for CG/live-action sci-fi farce Absolutely Anything.
Terry Jones will be directing the film, which will be based on a script he developed with Gavin Scott across the last 20 years. It finds a group of aliens – voiced by Jones, Terry Gilliam, John Cleese and Michael Palin – who decide to give a human the power to do anything as a lark to see what a cock-up he’ll make of the whole thing. Cue madness and a talking dog named Dennis (to be voiced by Robin Williams) who understands more about what’s going on than anyone else.
If you noticed that there’s a name missing from that list, you’re spot on: Eric Idle has been approached, but has yet to sign on the dotted. "Terry and Gavin have crafted a classic farce - something I feel I know a little bit about after all the Pink Panther pictures we did with Blake Edwards at United Artists," producer Mike Medavoy says. "In fact, the movie even has a pompous Frenchman reminiscent of Inspector Clouseau – but there the similarity ends. Like all projects originated by any of the Monty Python guys, **Absolutely Anything **delightfully defies a logline." Except, you know, the one they released already about the aliens and the talking dog and so on…
Just don’t go expecting the next Holy Grail or Life Of Brian. "It's not a Monty Python picture, but it certainly has that sensibility," Jones told Variety. While we’re excited to see the majority of the Monty men back in one film, it remains to be seen if a CG/live-action comedy is the way to do it…