An elephant goes up against his wooly ancestors this weekend as 20th Century Fox Animation’s adaptation of the Dr. Seuss favorite Horton Hears a Who! aims to knock Warner Bros. 10,000 B.C. out of the top spot. Also opening in wide release are Summit Ent.’s mixed martial arts movie, Never Back Down, and Universal’s post-apocalyptic actioner, Doomsday.
Jim Carrey provides the voice of Horton, a loveable elephant who hears a cry for help coming from a tiny speck of dust floating through the air and suspects that it may support life. Steve Carell takes on the role of the Mayor of Who-Ville and Carol Burnett lends her voice to the always-skeptical Kangaroo, who doesn’t believe Horton’s claims of a tiny community in trouble. The voice cast also includes Seth Rogen (Knocked Up), Will Arnett (Blades of Glory), Amy Poehler (Shrek the Third), Isla Fisher (Hot Rod), Dan Fogler (Balls of Fury), Dane Cook (Employee of the Month) Jaime Presley (My Name Is Earl) and Jonah Hill (Evan Almighty).
Horton Hears a Who is directed by Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino from a script by Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio (The Santa Clause 2). The family flick is Fox’s latest collaboration with animation house Blue Sky Studios, following on the heels of the hugely successful Ice Age films and Robots. Releasing Horton in nearly 4,000 theaters, Fox is hoping for another hit on par with Ice Age: The Meltdown, which grossed $650 million worldwide.
Directed by rising genre master Neil Marshal (Dog Soldiers, The Descent), Doomsday takes a page from such gritty ’80s favorites as Escape From New York and the Mad Max films. The plot involves a team that must avert a global catastrophe by infiltrating a quarantined city inhabited by rough characters. Visual effects were created by Framestore-CFC, The Senate VFX, Double Negative, Machine FX and vfxfiles.
