Dreamworks announces “Me and My Shadow”

Variety is reporting that DreamWorks Animation has announced a March 2013 release date for Me and My Shadow, a new 3-D animated feature which will combine CG with traditional animation, a first for the company.

According to the Variety article:

“Shadow” tells the story of Shadow Stan, an incredibly frustrated shadow that yearns for a more dynamic life but happens to be stuck with Stanley Grubb, the world’s most boring human. Eventually pushed to the brink, Shadow Stan breaks the singular rule of the Shadow World — “they lead, we follow” — and takes control of Stanley.

Steve Bencich and Ron Friedman’s original screenplay is being revised by the writing team of Tom Astle and Matt Ember (Get Smart). “Shadow” will combine “the time-honored tradition of hand-drawn animation with the magical sophistication of CG characters and worlds in ways that have never been experienced by audiences before,” Damaschke said.

In the toon, the Shadow and everything in the Shadow World will be hand-drawn, while the human character and human world will be CG. The movie will alternate between the two worlds.

Mark Dindal (Chicken Little, The Emperor’s New Groove) is directing. Other members of the team include head of story Shane Prigmore and production designers Scott Wills and Raymond Zibach. Since there is no production art available, the photo above is from Spy Shadow, a 1967 DePatie Freleng TV cartoon shown on NBC Saturday Mornings. I predict the new DW feature will be a lot funnier than this.