April Fooled

Upcoming Pixar hoodwinked just about everybody last night, issuing an April 1st post that was picked up as news and ran left right and centre:

Pixar will delve into the area of VFX and live action with Brad Bird creating his first live-action feature length film, from the John Carter of Mars series. Pixar will provide the visual effects for the film with Brad Bird directing and Mark Fergus will co-direct and write the script.

Of course, even before you get to that bit of the story, there's a dead giveaway. The post begins:

As the first news post after the aquisition of Upcoming Pixar by The Walt Disney Company, I have been given the green light to announce Pixar's 2009 project.

There is a lot of truth in there, which makes it quite a convincing trick, I suppose. Mark Fergus is working on the script, Lasseter is executive producing, but it seems that Andrew Stanton is the most likely eventual director when the film does go into production, not under the Pixar banner, some point in the next couple of years.