'Rugrats' Movie Hires 'Diary Of A Wimpy Kid' Sequels Director David Bowers To Watch The CG Babies
Hey, remember last summer when Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon announced that they were working on a new Rugrats movie? But instead of being another animated take on the mischievous, precocious babies who started as a NickToon back in 1991, this new feature film adaptation was said to be a hybrid of live-action and computer animation used to bring the babies to life. Apparently no one at Paramount or Nickelodeon has realized what a horrifying idea this is, because the project now has a director.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the live-action Rugrats movie director will be David Bowers. The filmmaker previously helmed the Diary of a Wimpy Kid sequels Rodrick Rules, Dog Days, and The Long Haul.
The live-action Rugrats movie hasn't revealed much in the way of details about the production. All we know as of now is the script comes from David Goodman, who has a history with Family Guy. Meanwhile, Bowers has experience with both animation and live-action, having started off as an animator who co-directed Flushed Away and Astro Boy before jumping into live-action with the aforementioned Diary of a Wimpy Kid sequels. However, none of those movies inspire much hope that the Rugrats movie will actually be good.
The original Rugrats animated series ran from 1991 to the early 2000s, and it definitely changed significantly in its later years, losing some of the homemade charm the first few seasons had. The show follows Tommy Pickles, Chuckie Finster, Phil and Lil DeVille as a group of baby buddies who talked amongst themselves and went on adventures when the adults weren't looking. But sometimes their adventures were made a little more challenging thanks to Angelica Pickles, Tommy's three-year old cousin.
As the show went on, new characters like Tommy's little brother Dil, his neighbor Susie, and Chuckie's step-sister Kimi Finster became a big part of the show. But it's hard to say how many of the show's core characters will be brought to the big screen for the movie. But here's how Funny or Die imagined what a live-action Rugrats movie might have looked like:
What we do know about the Rugrats movie is that computer animation will be used to bring the babies to life. We've seen how digital effects have been used to create anything and everything and make it look lifelife, but there's something about the thought of computer animated babies that sounds creepy as hell. It makes sense from a production standpoint because wrangling that many babies on set would be a nightmare, but I don't see this going very well, especially for those nostalgic for the original NickToon and the theatrical movies that followed it.
Rugrats was recently pushed back to a January 29, 2021 release date.