Sony Pictures Animation’s flagship CG project, Open Season, is slated to get a day-and-date IMAX 3D release as it rolls into conventional theaters on Sept. 29. The animal comedy will be digitally converted to 3D and re-mastered via the patented IMAX DMR (Digital Re-mastering) technology. Sony Pictures Releasing will be the exclusive distributor to IMAX theatres worldwide.
Based on the humor of In the Bleachers cartoonist Steve Moore, Open Season follows a couple of unlikely forest friends as they rally all the other animals to turn the tables on unsuspecting hunters. Martin Lawrence lends his voice to a 900 lb. domesticated grizzly bear named Boog, while Ashton Kutcher plays a scrawny mule deer named Elliot. Debra Messing joins the voice cast as a forest ranger who raised Boog from a cub and Gary Sinise is a seasoned hunter who is in pursuit of the unlikely critter duo. Moore will serve as exec. producer along with John Carls.
Open Season is being helmed by The Lion King director Roger Allers, along with Jill Culton, whose credits include Toy Story 2 and Monsters Inc., and Anthony Stacchi, who counts ANTZ among his various credits.
Sony Pictures Entertainment and IMAX previously teamed up for the 2004 release of Spider-Man 2: The IMAX Experience, and Open Season is one of four IMAX 3D titles scheduled for release in 2006. Partnerng with IMAX has certainly paid off for competing studio Warner Bros., whose 3D version of the animated Polar Express has pulled more than $60 million in IMAX venues alone. Warner Bros.’ next CG feature, Happy Feet, will get a day-and-date IMAX 3D release on Nov. 17, 2006.
Established in may of 2002, Sony Pictures Animation is also currently in production on its second feature, the penguin surfing movie Surf’s Up!, for release in the summer of 2007.
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