Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

The Pet
7/29/09 – SCI FI Wire reported that producer Craig Perry has another live-action F/X-driven family comedy in the works with Disney, called The Pet.  "Very simplest idea," Perry said. "On page 15, a guy is taken from Earth in an alien spacecraft, and he wakes up in a pet store and is sold to a family. You take all the tropes of how we see pets. We open up with our guy at the dog park. He winds up going to the dog park on the alien planet, and it's a bunch of humans running around doing shit.  All the pet tropes, but it's really E.T. in reverse, where he has to figure out if he's a good pet or he'll actually wind up being able to get back home. It's very charming."  The alien setting will also mine comedy out of the opportunities for fantastic visuals. "It's very funny," Perry continued. "It's surprisingly funny, because there's a size disparity. So you have all those great jokes about somebody who climbing up the stairs is a bitch. We're really excited about that, and the studio's really behind it."  Perry has no news on casting our human pet yet. "It's a long way away," he said. "It's just a lot of work to prep this thing."  Disney has yet to set a release date for The Pet.

05/01/08 - David Silverman has signed on to develop and direct The Pet, a live-action SF family comedy for Disney, about an everyday guy who becomes the pet of a group of aliens.

10/18/08 - James Gunn will write and direct Pets, an alien-themed comedy produced by New Regency and Ben Stiller's Red Hour production company.  The comedy follows a man abducted by aliens who want to turn him into a household pet. The film will be distributed by 20th Century Fox.

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