The foundation established by legendary special effects visionary Ray Harryhausen is pleased to announce a joint effort with Morningside Productions, the company of late film producer Charles Schneer. Discovery of new materials in the vast archives of the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation will be the basis of a spectacularly new and original theatrical motion picture in the style of such Harryhausen/Schneer classics such as Clash of the Titans, the duo’s most significant box office collaboration from 1981.
This project, tentatively entitled Force of the Trojans,is based on a screenplay by Beverley Cross, and original production art and sculptures conceived by Ray Harryhausen that are on par with some of his most iconic screen creatures.
(Via GeekTyrant) Couple of things: first and foremost, ‘curating the archives of the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation’ is a job I didn’t even know existed prior to about five minutes ago, and now I’m mildly jealous of whoever actually gets to do that every day. Seriously, what do you have to do to deserve a job like that? Rescue a bus full of orphans in a previous lifetime?
Secondly: judging from the flavortext of the press release — which, obviously, is going to hype up everything that it can and a few things that it really can’t — this is going to be a mixed stop-motion / CGI production called Force of the Trojans. They claim that, “[i]n homage to a bygone era, this film will bring both worlds crashing together.” I assume that means that we’re going to see CGI critters beat up on stop-motion animation critters and vice versa, which admittedly does have a certain appeal. Which leads to thirdly: thirdly (and alas), I don’t expect this project to be a summer blockbuster that encourages the renaissance of an entire new crop of classic stop-motion animated films. But feel free to prove me wrong, the world. Rub my face in it, in fact.
I suspect that they are going to use CGI to merge the stop motion more effectively with live action.
This is a thing that I want, that I did not know I wanted.