05/12/2008: "Jon Favreau aiming for 2D look in mo-cap Neanderthals"
Iron Man director Jon Favreau will next write, helm and produce the feature-length motion capture caveman comedy Neanderthals for Sony Pictures Animation, a project which was intially announced back in 2005. Favreau told MTV News back in January that he was hoping to shoot the motion capture part before the potential actors strike next month so he could then “theoretically work on the animated part of it over the next couple of years. Mo-cap is a misleading term because the animation won’t resemble the animation of Polar Express or Monster House. That was very lifelike. This will be comedic and stylized. The animation will appear more like a traditional animated film. The mo-cap will be used simply as a basis for animation and to allow the performers to all be in one space together. Hopefully, it will inherit some of their spontaneity. We haven’t cast it yet, but I like working with people who have a background in improvisation. I don’t want to follow the paradigm of a [traditional] animated film.” Favreau further hinted to Variety that the film was likely to feature squash and stretch. Interestingly enough, Chris Sanders is currently developing another caveman comedy, Crood Awakening, for DreamWorks Animation.
