Thundercats Are Back
Warner Bros. Brings 80's Toon to Theatres, Jerry O'Flaherty Directs
Oct 11, 2007
After TMNT made a decent pile of cash and Transformers became one of the biggest hits of the summer of 2007, it was a gimme that other studios would try to bring 1980's cartoon/toy properties to the big screen in order to replicate that movie's success. Warner Bros. is leading the charge by adapting the oft-slashfic'ed toon Thundercats as a CGI animated adventure.
Variety announced that video game veteran Jerry O'Flaherty will make his feature film debut directing the CGI animated movie. O'Flaherty is best known as the art director for such best-selling video games as Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3 for Epic Games, and the Command and Conquer series for Westwood Studios.
Jerry O'Flaherty: VG Art Director Jumps to Big Screen
He had long been trying to make the leap from video games into film, even considering a live-action project at one point. However, the relative ease of transitioning between video games and CGI animated movies appealed to him.
"It feels like a natural thing for me to step into," O'Flaherty told Variety about making the jump from video games to CGI animation. "Games have come so far now. The last four years of my life have been about bringing the energy of film-making into the video game experience."
He will also work with writer Paul Sopocy (Staring at the Sun) on refining the Thundercats script that Warner Bros. commissioned last summer. Warner-based producer Paula Weinstein (Blood Diamond) will produce the project through her Spring Creek Productions company, assisted by first-time producers Dick Robertson and Lew Korman.
What's a Thundercat?
Thundercats was a cartoon television show, developed by Rankin/Bass Productions, that debuted in 1983 and lasted until 1990. It followed the adventures of a group of humanoid cat people who escaped from their dying homeworld of Thundera and landed on the planet Third Earth.
Once on Third Earth, the Thundercats were forced to combat the evil zombie-sorcerer Mumm-Ra, who coveted the Sword of Omens which contained the mystic jewel The Eye of Thundera, the source of the Thundercats' powers.
The movie will be a "coming of age" story about Lion-O, the young prince of the Thundercats, and how he takes his place as leader of the group.
The Thundercats movie is tentatively scheduled for a 2010 release.
Fun Fact: Pacific Animation Corporation, a Japanese collective of animation studios, provided the animation on Thundercats. One of those animation studios was Topcraft, which would later become the anime powerhouse Studio Ghibli.
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