The short independent film "Bunny" netted Chris
Wedge an Oscar®. From there, the already budding relationship
between Wedge's Blue Sky Studios and 20th Century Fox went
full bloom with Ice Age, much to the joy of audiences.
Now, Wedge turns his attention to Robots, a film co-developed
with William Joyce ("Rolie Polie Olie"). The film
presents a world inhabited by the most dazzling assortment
of mechanized maniacs. It's a lived-in world, and they are
lived-in characters, marred with the grease, dust, cracks
and charm usually reserved for antique porcelain-enameled
metal appliances and classic cars.
It's the story of a young small town genius inventor's journey
to meet his idol. He finds adventure, friendship, and possibly
love, along the way. Such luminaries as Ewan McGregor, Halle
Berry, Greg Kinnear, Mel Brooks, Robin Williams and Amanda
Bynes lend their voice talents to the feature, and judging
from the trailer
alone, it appears to be a very funny and engaging movie.
Looks like audiences are in for another treat!
"William Joyce and I have been talking about doing
something together for a long time. We
met when Fox had optioned one of his books, 'Santa Calls',
back in 1995 or so. I'd always been an admirer, and a couple
of people had recommended we get together and talk. We had
dinner to get to know each other, and just became really
fast friends.
Bill designed a lot of the characters for the movie, and
some of them we worked on, evolving them in the studio [at
Blue Sky]. Bill's got a great, whimsical, fun, infectious
style, but you can't necessarily just translate them straight
over into CG. His designs definitely have to evolve into
3D, and so we have to come up with ways to make it work.
Robots sprung from [my friendship with Bill]... We've
been making it up for about seven years. In fact, I think
I can say that we're finally done working on this
story because I just locked Reel 5..."
--Chris
Wedge, Dec 2004
Thanks
to Carol Cundiff, Mona Falvey, and Chris Wedge for their invaluable
assistance.
