Dreamworks Gets Talent

Variety have announced that Chris Sanders, director of Lilo and Stitch and originator of American Dog, has signed to Dreamworks. His first project is to be Crood Awakening, previously in development with Aardman and co-scripted by John Cleese.

Add to this the fact that Disney 3D's Phil McNally is headed to Dreamworks too and it seems like the Dreamworks Animations' batting average might be about to increase drastically.

Of course, it looked that way when Aardman signed, and while I suppose it was true - no other animation from the studio even comes close to Curse of the Wererabbit - the sad fact is, both Chicken Run and Flushed Away were, frankly, sub-par for Aardman efforts. Dreamworks also dumped Richard Goleszowski's Tortoise and the Hare, one of Aardman's most interesting and ambitious concepts.

If Aardman did good for Dreamworks, yippee for Dreamworks - but they did bad for Aardman, so I was glad to see the partnership fold. I don't want the same to be true of Sanders and McNally. I want to see them do even better work than they have at Disney.