Kristen Bell (Heroes, Gossip Girl) and Matt Lucas (Little Britain) have signed up to lend their voices to Astro Boy, Imagi Studios’ upcoming CG-animated feature film based on the classic anime and manga property. The actors will be joining a cast that includes Freddie Highmore, Nicolas Cage, Donald Sutherland, Nathan Lane, Bill Nighy and Eugene Levy.
Kristen Bell recently starred in the feature films as Fanboys and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and is headlining with Meg Ryan in the upcoming comedy Serious Moonlight. BAFTA-winning actor-writer Matt Lucas has appeared widely on the stage as well as in feature films and television, most recently starring in the new HBO series Little Britain USA.
David Bowers (Flushed Away) is directing Astro Boy from a screenplay by Timothy Harris (Trading Places, Kindergarten Cop), with Maryann Garger producing. The pic will put a new twist on the sci-fi/adventure property created by legendary ‘god of manga,’ Osamu Tezuka, in the 1950s.
Set in the future, the Astro Boy movie is described by Imagi as a classic superhero origin story about a young robot with incredible powers who sets out on an adventurous journey in search of his identity and destiny, a quest that will take him into a netherworld of robot gladiators before he returns to save Metro City. The flick is slated for domestic release on Oct. 23, 2009 through Summit Ent. Summit holds worldwide distribution rights, except for Imagi’s reserved territories of Japan, Hong Kong and China.
Based in Los Angeles and Hong Kong, Imagi produced TMNT, the 2006 CG-animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot, which did well at the domestic box office considering its modest budget. The company is also busy at work on Gatchaman, a feature-length adaptation of the classic anime TV series Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, which debuted in the 1970s and is better known in the U.S. as Battle of the Planets or G-Force. Imagi’s CG update is being directed by Kevin Munroe (TMNT), and is expected to hit theaters in 2010.
