The ChubbChubbs return
Christmas-Themed Sequel Will Show Before Daddy Day Camp
Sony Pictures Animation hopes that new animated short, The ChubbChubbs Save Xmas, will save Daddy Day Camp at the box office.
The ChubbChubbs are returning to the silver screen, and this time they’re saving Christmas.
AWN reports that The ChubbChubbs Save Xmas (presumably the different spelling is there to ensure that no one will get offended) will show in theatres on August 8th, right before the live-action comedy Daddy Day Camp.
In the sequel to the Oscar-winning CGI short The ChubbChubbs!, the titular characters are looking for a place to call home. These aliens with the bottomless appetites travel to Earth and encounter Santa Claus, voiced by Jeffrey Tambor (Hellboy, Arrested Development). Meeper (Bradford Simonson) and his gang of fanged fuzzballs (voiced collectively by Jeff Wolverton) pinch-hit for Kris Kringle at Christmas time, scare a juvenile delinquent straight, and learn heart warming (or burning) lessons about home and family.
Unlike the first short, which was directed by Eric Armstrong, Cody Cameron (Stuart Little) will direct The ChubbChubbs Save Xmas and Kirk Bodyfelt will produce the short for Sony Pictures Animation.
Cameron, David Feiss and Jurgen Gross wrote the story for The ChubbChubbs Save Xmas. Wolverton wrote the original ChubbChubbs’ script, which won the 2003 Oscar for Best Animated Short Film.
Sony hopes that including this animated short with Daddy Day Camp will save the Cuba Gooding Jr. comedy at the box office. This Tri-Star flick suffers from two major problems:
- Daddy Day Camp is a sequel to the 2003hit Daddy Day Care. Unfortunately, the film’s producers were unable to lure back star Eddie Murphy, which is why Gooding received top billing in this new movie.
- The film has received a 0% Rotten Rating on film site Rotten Tomatoes, meaning that every reviewer who has seen it so far has panned it.
Both The ChubbChubbs Save Xmas and The Chubbchubbs! will be included as special features on the home video release of Surf's Up, which goes on sale Oct. 9, 2007, on DVD, Blu-ray and PSP.
Fun Fact: In the original short, Armstrong threw in several comedic references to Star Wars and other well known science-fiction movies. During the bar scene, Darth Vader and Yoda are shown arm-wrestling in the background, Jar-Jar Binks warns Meeper about the ChubbChubbs, and an alien is depicted having a hairdo similar to Princess Leia’s iconic look from the 1977 movie. Other flicks referenced in the ChubbChubbs! include Steven Spielberg’s E.T. (who escapes in a bicycle basket), Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still, and an Alien from the Ridley Scott sci-fi/horror movie.
