May 6, 2015

Chris Wedge's live-action directorial debut "Monster Truck" is delayed

Monster Trucks, the live-action/CG directorial debut from Academy Award-winning director and Blue Sky Studios co-founder Chris Wedge (Robots, Epic, and Ice Age, for which he also provided the voice of Scrat) has been postponed from its Christmas 2015 opening to March 18, 2016.

The film, based on Hasbro's Monster Trucks toy line, is being produced by Paramount Animation and Disruption Entertainment. Wedge is directing from an original script by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger (the duo behind the Kung Fu Panda and Alvin and the Chipmunks screenplays) and Derek Connolly (Safety Not Guaranteed, Jurassic World).

This is the second time the Monster Trucks opening has been delayed: a May 29, 2015 release was originally planned. The move away from a December release makes way for Disney's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which opens December 18. Monster Trucks has been described as an Amblin-style, action-adventure cross between The Goonies and Transformers. Film Divider published what was purported to be an in-house blurb from an unspecified source earlier in the year.

Paramount Animation had a big win earlier in the year with The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water. Other Paramount Animation feature film projects which have been variously reported (or merely speculated) to be in the works include The New Kid (adapted from a series of strips from the Penny Arcade webcomic), Shedd (directed by Paperman's John Kahrs), Giant Monsters Attack Japan, and another SpongeBob movie.