As Universal gets set for the December release its CG-animated feature film The Tale of Despereaux, it faces legal action over the issue of credits, or lack thereof. The New York Times reports that director Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville) is taking legal action against the studio because his name isn’t mentioned in any of the film’s promotional materials. The filmmaker was originally assigned to direct the film and came up with some character designs and other conceptual art before being fired from the project more than two years ago.
Based on Kate DiCamillo’s Newberry Award-winning children’s book Tale of Desperaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup and a Spool of Thread, the movie features the voices of Matthew Broderick, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Watson, Tracey Ullman, William H. Macy, Robbie Coltrane, Kevin Kline, Christopher Lloyd, Stanley Tucci, Sigourney Weaver, Frank Langella and Ciaran Hinds. Animation was handled by U.K.-based Framestore CFC, which makes its animated feature debut with the project.
Producer Gary Ross, who helmed Seabiscuit and Pleasantville, contends that Chomet was kicked off the project because he insisted on directing two features as the same time. The other film is The Illusionist, an animated adaptation of an unproduced original script by legendary French comic Jacques Tati. Chomet says Ross and the other producers of Despereaux were initially okay with him pulling double duty since the animation process is so protracted. The Illusionist, which is slated for a spring 2009 release in France, is produced by Sylvain and Sally Chomet’s Scotland-based studio, Django Films.
‘I felt like a lemon; they got the juice out of me and threw me away,’ Chomet tells The New York Times. He claims that he was fired by fax just two weeks after Universal officially green lit the film. He was initially replaced by Mike Johnson (Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride), who was then switched with Sam Fell (Flushed Away) and Rob Stevenhagen, a veteran animator making his directorial debut.
Writers Chris Viscardi and Will McRobb, who were working on the script with Chomet, were also let go. They are also at odds with Ross, who decided to write the screenplay himself and is claiming sole credit for the script.
