The English-language version of Hayao Miyazaki’s latest animated tour de force will feature major talent from the worlds of film and television. Lending their voices to characters in Ponyo on the Cliff are Matt Damon, Tina Fey, Cate Blanchett and Liam Neeson. The pic will get a limited North American theatrical run trough Disney in 2009.
Ponyo centers on a five-year-old boy’s friendship with a ‘girl-fish’ who wants to be human and ventures out of her underwater world. The plot echoes elements from Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid fairy tale, as well as traditional Japanese folklore. The movie debuted in Japan on July 19 and opened to roughly $17 million.
The English-language version is produced by Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy, who last year brought Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis to U.S. The Duo will receive the VES Lifetime Achievement Award this year for a body of work that includes Raiders of the Lost Ark and the three Indian Jones sequels.
