Mike D'Isa to direct Hoodwinked 2
sequel to Weinstein Company animated hit subtitled Hood Vs. Evil
Yep, Hoodwinked! made enough coin at the box office for somebody to greenlight a sequel. It's coming in 2008.
(Source: www.awn.com)
Hoodwinked! was one movie no one expected to do well in 2005. Cranked out by Blue Yonder Films, Kanbar Entertainment and the Weinstein Company: people who brought you such memorable fare as Doogal and Arthur and the Invisibles. Oh yeah, the Weinstein Company also brought us the current TMNT (I'll leave you to decide whether or not that's a good thing).
In place of a plot, Hoodwinked! mined the familiar Shrek & Happily N'Ever After territory of deconstructing fairy tales for fun and profit, while throwing in pop-culture references to xXx, Fletch, The Fast and the Furious and Mission: Impossible.
Oh, and did we mention that Hoodwinked! earned a 45% Rotten rating on RottenTomatoes.com? It looked like a sure recipe for a box office bomb.
However, Hoodwinked! had one major advantage: it was shot for $15 million, and featured a pre-Devil Wears Prada Anne Hathaway, Glenn Close and perennial shoulda-been-a-contender Patrick Warburton. That meant that its paltry opening-weekend gross ($16.8 million) managed to clear studio costs and ensure that somebody would want to make a sequel.
Alas, now that sequel is here. Mike D'Isa-Hogan, best known for assisting Rob Zombie on El Superbeasto and animating Home on the Range and Pooh's Heffalump Movie, has signed on to direct Hoodwinked 2: Hood Vs. Evil.
The plot of Hoodwinked 2 follows Red as she is training in a distant land with the mysterious Sisters of the Hood. When Nicky Flippers, head of the Happy Ever After Agency, calls her home, she has to team up with Wolf to investigate the disappearance of Hansel and Gretel. Granny and the other Hoodwinked! gang return, as well as some "exciting new characters,"
“I am thrilled to be working on this film and with everyone involved,” claimed D'Isa-Hogan in a statement. There was no comment as to whether someone was holding a gun to his head at the time.
There's no word on when this flick will hit theatres, but look for a 2008 release date.
There's also no word as to whether the entire cast will return for Hoodwinked 2. Warburton will most likely be back, as his other movies haven't exactly set the world on fire (Happily N'Ever After anyone?). Glenn Close, like Michael Caine or Gene Hackman, is not averse to cashing in a paycheque and appearing in sub-standard material. Ditto with James Belushi, David Ogden Stiers, Chazz Palminteri or Andy Dick.
The question of course remains: now that Anne Hathaway helped make the highbrow The Devil Wears Prada one of 2006's bigger hits, is she willing to go back to such a low-budget franchise? Stars usually ramp their rates when being approached for a sequel; will Hathaway deliberately price herself out of the flick so that she can pursue more meaningful scripts? Only time will tell.
