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Verbinski, Breathed team upPirates of the Caribbean Director Brings Flawed Dogs to Screen
Berke Breathed (Opus) and Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) are developing Flawed Dogs: The Year End Leftovers at the Piddleton "Last Chance" Dog Pound for Disney
(Source: jimhillmedia.com) Good news for Berke Breathed, bad news for Pirates of the Caribbean fans. Director Gore Verbinski, who helmed all three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, may be giving up the franchise in order to develop Breathed's 2003 picture book Flawed Dogs: The Year End Leftovers at the Piddleton "Last Chance" Dog Pound for Walt Disney Feature Animation. As Breathed said, while promoting his latest book Mars Needs Women, "Gore's sick of pirates. If I wrote a scene that had to be shot on water, he'd run the other way." Early reports suggest that WDFA may not be out of the CGI game just yet, since Breathed says Flawed Dogs will be animated in that format. However, Flawed Dogs has a serious flaw: even the author admits that there's no real story. However, Breathed says, "all of the characters and settings that you need for a fun movie are there." Breathed, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist best known for his 1980's series Bloom County and the current Opus, is having a Gaiman-esque rekindled romance with Hollywood these days. In addition to Flawed Dogs, the Mouse House also optioned Mars Needs Moms as a feature film. "Robert Zemeckis is doing the movie version of Mars Needs Moms," enthused the author during his book tour. "They're working on the script now." If Disney has the rights, that means it will probably end up as one of Zemeckis' projects at his new ImageMovers Digital imprint. Disney put together the imprint last January, in order to lure Zemeckis' (Polar Express, Forrest Gump) motion-capture wizardry to the Mouse House. As for Pirates of the Caribbean, actor Johnny Depp has told Disney that he'd be up for a Pirates 4. Since Depp's Capt. Jack Sparrow is the only truly crucial element needed for these movies, it's safe to say that there will be a sequel, if At World's End does well at the box office. And when I say, "does well" we're talking well over the $250 million range. So the question becomes: will Disney risk Pirates of the Caribbean with another director? Or will Disney CEO Robert Iger offer everything but his left kidney in order to lure Verbinski back into the director's chair? If Verbinski does drop Pirates, he may have to deal with the wrath of countless fans, including Breathed's 4-year-old son. As Breathed explained in an interview with The A.V. Club, "My 4-year-old son retrieves a pirate pistol and sword and acts out the entire movie, shooting and stabbing everyone in the family, all of whom are amused except for Pickles the pit bull." Fun Fact: Berke Breathed's distaste for the George W. Bush administration is well-known. His latest brainwave is, "The weekend after Bush leaves office, I'd like to run a strip where Opus is standing on an aircraft carrier with a big 'Mission Accomplished' banner behind him."
The copyright of the article Verbinski, Breathed team up in Hollywood Animated Films is owned by Dominic von Riedemann. Permission to republish Verbinski, Breathed team up in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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