SCOOP: ALIEN PET BOY resurrected?

By: Patrick Sauriol
Date: Monday, January 10, 2005
Source: Anonymous

One of the more interesting projects trapped in the pits of development hell is a movie adaptation of the childrens book PET BOY. Written and illustrated by Keith Graves, the story follows a young boy named Stanley who's more of a pet collector than a pet lover, always losing interest in his latest furry friend until a new animal that's more exotic comes along. One day Sytanley is kidnapped by a flying saucer and adopted by a three-eyed alien boy named Jopnar as his pet, forcing the human child to learn what it's like to be treated without respect for one's pets.

ALIEN PET BOY (as the movie was titled) was first optioned by Universal Pictures in the late 1990s and scheduled to be one of the studio's new computer generated films until plans for Uni's new division fell through. The project was then picked up in 2000 by Nickelodeon in turnaround from Universal, with director Chris Bird coming aboard to develop it. Then, for the past five years, there's been no news to report about the ALIEN PET BOY film...until we got this scoop:

"Paramount on 1/5/2005 gave the production go-ahead to Klasky Csupo to develop and reinvigorate ALIEN PET BOY. It will be the first full 3D movie for Klasky Csupo."

Klasky Csupo is the animation firm behind the RUGRATS cartoon series and movies, so if ALIEN PET BOY has indeed been picked up by this company, it's found a good home.

[Anonymous.]


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