Universal continues to expand its cinematic universe of monsters with another upcoming project, Little Monsters. The family-friendly, live-action hybrid monster feature has set Josh Cooley, director of the Oscar-winning Toy Story 4, to helm the project.
Little is known about the plot details. However, sources report that Little Monsters is described as a love letter to classic Hollywood and the history of filmmaking with a story will feature characters from the entire history of Universe’s monster movies, spanning nearly 100 years.
The project is based on concept artist Crash McCreery‘s artistic outlines and character designs. McCreery has worked on visually-striking movies like Jurassic World, Kong: Skull Island, Batman Returns and Rango, and also will executive produce. Todd Lieberman and David Hoberman of Mandeville Films are also producing.
While most monster movies are typically R-rated and gory, Little Monsters will not be the case. In fact, Cooley is the champion when it comes to helming family-friendly, all-ages fare movies. Cooley’s Toy Story 4 revived the iconic, children’s franchise, touching the hearts of millions of families across the world, collecting more than $1 billion at the box office and winning the best animated feature Oscar award back in February.
Cooley spent 17 years at Pixar as a storyboard artist on movies like The Incredibles and Cars, and acting as a writer on 2015’s Inside Out. Cooley has also been set to direct Paramount and Hasbro’s first theatrical animated Transformers movie since the 1986 film The Transformers: The Movie. He also is attached to write and make his live-action directorial debut with Sony Pictures’ Malamander, an adaptation of the best-selling children’s book by Thomas Taylor. Little Monsters marks his third big feature outside of Pixar Studios.
Universal is currently on a monster spree, with numerous projects in the works. The studio is working on the reimagining of Ryan Gosling’s The Wolfman, The Bride of Frankenstein by David Koepp, the reboot of The Invisible Woman by Elizabeth Banks, Dark Army written and directed by Paul Feig, the reimagining of Dracula to be directed by Karyn Kusama, and lastly, Grammy nominee Matt Stawski is directing a musical titled Monster Mash. Universal also had released earlier this year the box office hit of the modern retelling of The Invisible Man starring Elisabeth Moss.
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