After enduring the savaging of her late husband’s beloved Cat In The Hat at the hands of a mugging Mike Myers, Audrey Geisel has sold 20th Century Fox Animation and Blue Sky Studios the rights to adapt Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who as a computer-animated movie.
Horton, the elephant who thinks he’s hearing things at first but then discovers a whole new world, will be animated by the folks that are bringing Robots to the nation’s cinemas tomorrow. (Robot’s director Chris Wedge also helmed Ice Age.)
“I have always wanted to find a way to do a digitally animated Dr. Seuss movie,” says Christopher Meledandri, president of 20th Century Fox Animation, in an article published in today’s Hollywood Reporter. “I have loved Dr. Seuss since I was a little kid.”
Meledandri reportedly approached Dr. Seuss Enterprises and the late author’s wife and estate executor Audrey Geisel almost two years ago to discuss creating a 3-D animated movie based on one of Dr. Seuss’ books.
According to Meledandri, Geisel was initially resistant to adapting any of her husband’s books as CG movies. Previously, Geisel has collaborated with Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment on the live-action features How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Cat in the Hat.
Fox also has acquired rights to the second book in the Horton series, Horton Hatches the Egg.
