French 'Puss in Boots' sprints ahead of DreamWorks - Variety 2/9/07

[ALIASd]

French 'Puss in Boots' sprints to finish
MK2's version of fairytale to beat DreamWork's film

By Alison James
Variety
February 9, 2007

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The claws are out between DreamWork's "Shrek" spinoff "Puss in Boots," and a rival Euro project from Gallic mini-major MK 2.


DreamWorks has said its "Puss" will be ready for 2011. MK2 doesn't intend to wait that long.

Its $24 million "The True story of Puss in Boots" — adapted from the original story story by French fairytale author Charles Perrault — is already in production and is slated for delivery end of 2008, for release in early 2009.

"We aren't jumping on the bandwagon," Nathanael Karmitz, MK2's managing director, said on Friday. "Our film has been in development for more than two years. It's just fortunate for us that we'll be ready first."

Co-produced with Belgium's Nexus Factory and Swiss shingle Saga Prods., the Gallic project was developed and will be co-helmed by Pascal Herold, founder and former topper of Gallic f/x outift Duran Duboi, and theater actor Jerome Deschamps, director of Paris' Opera Comique. Production will be the first feature handled by Herold's new animation studio Herold & Family.

The Euro Puss is "in the spirit of the original story but it is a loose adaptation," says Karmitz. "It's more modern, with lots of action."
Herold said: "A lot of traditional animation films are far too politically correct. Our puss isn't like that."

MK2 is planning to launch an aggressive merchandizing campaign around the film.

"Puss" reps MK2's second foray into animation, after "Children of the Rain," which it co-produced and distributed, and is part of a new ambition at the company to produce bigger-budget crossover fare.

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?lay...117959090&cs=1

[BlueSkyDriveBy]

DreamWorks has said its "Puss" will be ready for 2011.

Geez, four more years? Why bother? DW should have moved on this immediately after S2 was released.

[Hector]

but that would have put Shrek 3 and 4 further behind then were they already are

[sir clinksalot]

$24 million??? I didn't know movies could be made that inexpensively anymore.

Plus ... Antonio Banderas' voice as Puss N' Boots = Perfect.