Did I miss something growing up? The Little Prince is a 1943 children’s novella that is apparently quite popular. It has sold over 80 million copies and has over 190 different translations, yet until today I had never heard of it. Was my childhood poorer for not reading this? Am I missing something essential? Is it that good? The wikipedia summary of the story makes it seem trippy as can be, but then again, Dr. Seuss wasn’t exactly normal either.
Anyway, Mark Osborne, the director of Kung Fu Panda and the super awesome Weird Al music video Jurassic Park, has been selected to direct this adaptation. Release date is scheduled for 2014 with a production start of 2012 which gives me a decent amount of time to finally read the book.
The project comes from European production company Gallic S3D, which is hoping to create an animated film on par with the products of Hollywood (read: Pixar) and Japan (read: Miyazaki). The reported budget is 45 million Euros, which in real people money is about $63 million. I’m feeling pretty good about this. Kung Fu Panda was one of the better non-Pixar animated films of the past few years and the source material seems pretty unique. We’ll see how this turns out in four years.
Source: Variety
