Jun 11, 2019

The creator of oatmeal, Matthew Inman, is developing an animated film for illumination

Webcomic creator Matthew Inman, who is behind the humor site theoatmeal.com, has signed a deal to develop an animated feature for Illumination Entertainment. He made the announcement on his website last week.

Inman, who has been drawing comics for over a decade now, transitioned into the animation industry a couple years ago. The popularity of The Oatmeal landed him at Illumination Entertainment where he has been working as creative consultant for the past 18 months on a number of the studio's features.

Notably, he worked on the recently released The Secret Life of Pets 2, creating gags additional gags and sequences for the film. “Throughout this process,” Inmman wrote on his site, “I've learned a ton about screenwriting, filmmaking, and storyboarding. I even taught myself how to make animatics…”.

Inamn's film at Illumination is in development and doesn't appear to have a greenlight yet, but the fact that someone who's built a name for himself independently has been brought in by a major studio to create an original feature is significant news. “I started The Oatmeal ten years ago, almost to the day, and I never thought it would bring me here,” Inman said.

No details have been announced about the film yet, but Inman says that “it's going to be very funny.”

Inman said that he wouldn't be working full time on The Oatmeal, but that he's not quitting the site entirely and will continue to publish comics infrequently. Inman recently published his latest collection of comics in a book titled Why My Cat Is More Impressive Than Your Baby.