Boyle, Beaufoy To Animate Truckers
DreamWorks Animation Adapts Terry Pratchett Bromeliad Book
Mar 27, 2009
Last December, MTV News reported that Danny Boyle's attempt to adapt Terry Pratchett's children's book Truckers for DreamWorks Animation was collapsing amid executive indifference.
"it's fallen apart," Boyle told MTV when asked to comment at the time.
However, this was before Boyle's film Slumdog Millionaire won 8 Academy Awards at this year's Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Now Truckers, the first in Pratchett's Bromeliad trilogy, is not only back on but, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Slumdog scribe Simon Beaufoy has also signed on as scriptwriter.
Beaufoy is the 2nd Oscar-winning scriptwriter to make an animated film his next project. Michael Arndt, whose Little Miss Sunshine won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2006, is currently working for Disney/Pixar on their movie, 2010's Toy Story 3.
Slumdog Millionaire's Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy to Adapt Terry Pratchett's Truckers
Award-winning author Terry Pratchett OBE wrote the Bromeliad trilogy – which includes Truckers, Diggers and Wings – between 1990 and 1991, as a break between installments of his better-known Discworld series.
The Bromeliad tells follows a race of tiny people called the Nomes. They're originally from another world, but now live hidden among humans. Through the course of the trilogy, they struggle to survive in this world and, once they learn of their history from an artifact known as "The Thing", make plans to return home.
The trilogy's title was Pratchett's play on David Eddings' bestselling Belgariad fantasy trilogy and Homer's classic Iliad. Parody is nothing new for Pratchett, who spoofs fantasy in the Discworld series, and wrote the apocalyptic comedy Good Omens with Neil Gaiman.
Pratchett was made a member of the Order of the British Empire in 1998 for his 'services to literature.' In typical Pratchett fashion, he responded by saying, "I suspect the 'services to literature' consisted of refraining from trying to write any."
DreamWorks Animation picked up the film adaptation rights for the Bromeliad in 2001, initially wanting director Andrew Adamson (Shrek 2) to handle it. However, Adamson bailed to go work for Walden Media/Disney on The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and its follow-up, Prince Caspian. Adamson is currently producing Voyage of the Dawn Treader for and the animated film Tortoise and Hippo for Walden Media. That last film is tentatively scheduled for a 2011 release.
With both Boyle and Beaufoy on board Truckers, it's certain that this movie will likely hit theatres sometime before Shrek 17.
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