Aardman Animations--the famed British cartoon studio that hatched last year's Chicken Run for DreamWorks and is also responsible for Nick Park's beloved, Oscar-winning Wallace and Grommit shorts--has announced it's pink-slipping 90 crew members and postponing production on DreamWorks' next animated adventure to smooth out problems with the script.
The company's announcement means some of the staff who worked on Chicken Run will now have to wait six months until filmmakers figure out how to retool the Tortoise vs. Hare script. Producers are pointing at a shortened development schedule as the reason for the script-tweaking.
"Chicken Run was in development for 2 1/2 years, but we've had just 16 months on Tortoise," Aardman spokesman Arthur Sheriff tells the Hollywood Reporter. "We hate to make all these people redundant, but it means we will be able to flesh out the characters more and make a better film."
Sheriff said more than 90 of the 172-person Hare crew will be cut, while new scribes will be brought in to help the original writers punch up the story, an adaptation of Aesop's classic fable.
Aardman's betting that slowing things down will benefit Tortoise vs. Hare in the long run, as it did for DreamWorks when the studio twice delayed its current animated blockbuster, Shrek. That 'toon has raked in more than $200 million and counting at the box office.
Sheriff says those crew members laid off will be hired back as soon as the $40 million Tortoise vs. Hare goes back into production. The company will also most likely push the release date back from 2003 to 2004.
Directed by Richard Goleszowski and written by Karey Kirkpatrick and Mark Burton (who were behind Chicken Run), Tortoise vs. Hare features the voice work of Bob Hoskins, Brenda Blethyn, Lee Evans and Orlando Jones.