Sky Drops First Trailer For Terry Pratchett’s ‘The Amazing Maurice’

Sky has released a trailer for its upcoming animated feature The Amazing Maurice, adapted from Terry Pratchett’s popular Discworld entry.

A bit about the film:

• The film is adapted from Terry Pratchett’s book The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Aladdin and Shrek writer Terry Rossio. The book was a unique children’s entry in the comic-fantasy Discworld book series. The book won the Carnegie Medal for children’s literature, a prize that Pratchett always maintained gave him the most pride from his countless honors.
• In The Amazing Maurice, Maurice is a streetwise ginger cat who comes up with a money-making scam by befriending a group of self-taught talking rats. When Maurice and the rodents reach the stricken town of Bad Blintz, they meet a bookworm called Malicia and their little con soon goes down the drain.
• Studio Rakete in Hamburg, Germany, and Red Star Animation in Sheffield, U.K., are handling animation.
• The film is a Sky Original, directed by Toby Genkel (A Stork’s Journey) and co-directed by Florian Westermann. It’s co-produced by Sky, Ulysses Filmproduktion, and Cantilever Media in partnership with Global Screen with full support of the Terry Pratchett estate and is produced in association with Narrativia, the late author’s production company which he launched in 2012.
• Voice casting includes Hugh Laurie (House), Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones), David Thewlis (Wonder Woman), Himesh Patel (Yesterday), Gemma Arterton (The King’s Man), Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey), David Tennant (Doctor Who), Ariyon Bakare (His Dark Materials), Rob Brydon (Roald & Beatrix: The Tale of the Curious Mouse), and Julie Atherton (Avenue Q).
• The film has no U.S. distributor yet, but according to a report for Variety a deal is on the table. It will be released during Christmas on Sky Cinema in the U.K.
• Other Discworld books to get the animation treatment include Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters, which were adapted as television miniseries at Channel 4 in the late 1990s. Cosgrove Hall produced both.