The Sherlock Holmes star will lend his voice to one of Jay Ward’s beloved Rocky and Bullwinkle characters.
DreamWorks is making a feature film version of “Peabody’s Improbable History,” from the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons of the 1960s, and director Rob Minkoff (The Lion King, Stuart Little) has found the voice for his pup protagonist in Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man, Sherlock Holmes). Entertainment Weekly reports that “the project was just announced internally to the DreamWorks staff,” and so not much is known, but the details that are available are pretty exciting.
The filmmakers debated using some CGI/live-action hybrid nonsense, but finally settled on a fully computer animated film, which will, of course, be released in 3D. The script was written by Jeffrey Ventimilia and Joshua Sternin, both of whom have written for The Simpsons and The Critic (although their last film together was the live-action hybrid Yogi Bear). The plot will undoubtedly follow Mr. Peabody and his boy, Sherman, though their time-traveling adventures in the WABAC (pronounced “wayback”) machine, but will also address how the pair found one another. The role of Sherman has not yet been cast.
The duo appeared in shorts that helped comprise Rocky and his Friends and The Bullwinkle Show, which I know from my childhood as a VHS collection called The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. A compilation called Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends is available on DVD, though, so there’s no excuse not to check it out.
The film is scheduled for release in 2014.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
