Truckers

Truckers is a cancelled film film based on The Nome Trilogy book series and was in development from 2001 to 2011.

Plot[]

The story sees one group of the creatures try to convince another colony living in a department store that the world extends beyond the shop's walls.[1]

Development[]

A film based on The Nome Trilogy books was in the works from 2001 to 2011. They acquired the film rights in 2001, and announced plans to combine all three books into a single film. In making the announcement, Katzenberg said, ``There are few authors whose work lends itself to animation as well as Terry Pratchett's. His Bromeliad trilogy is a wonderful blend of fantasy, adventure and humor and I am honored to be able to bring his books to the screen, beginning with Truckers. Andrew Adamson is the perfect choice to direct this project. He brought an extraordinary level of ingenuity and enthusiasm to the production of Shrek, and I am thrilled to have an opportunity to work with both him and Joe Stillman again.” Commenting on why he chose DreamWorks to bring his novels to the big screen, Pratchett noted, “I liked Chicken Run and Galaxy Quest, and you've got to be impressed when someone from DreamWorks phones up from Hollywood one night and turns up for lunch in Wiltshire, England the very next day.“[2] It was to be directed by Andrew Adamson. Adamson told BBC News Online, "What I hope for is that every time people walking out of the theatre see something out of the corner of their eye - they will think it is one of the characters from the movie." Jeffrey Katzenberg also stated, "[Pratchett] has an amazing style and sensibility - his characters are very acerbic and very edgy and their point-of-view is hysterical. They see the whole world through this twisted, warped way. It's very exciting and very original. Terry's come over and spent some time with us at the studio and we've got a very good story." But Adamson thinks that, unlike with Shrek, it will be a challenge to condense Pratchett's three books into one movie. "The book is so dense and we've only got 82 minutes to tell the story, it’s the opposite of Shrek, where we were expanding the story - in this case we have to take the best and most worthwhile elements and condense them down. Terry's an amazing writer and has an incredible way of taking things that we know and see on a daily basis and turning them around and showing them to us in a different way. So I'm pretty excited about getting into it."

Re-Development[]

In late 2008, Danny Boyle was attached to direct Truckers, but the project fell apart as "a victim of this economic crisis." Boyle said, “I don't have anything in the works. I'm looking to do an animated fantasy, and I've been developing a film based on the first book of Terry Pratchett's "Bromeliad Trilogy." But the project seems to have fallen apart -- a victim of this economic crisis that's not supposed to be affecting the movie business.”[3] In 2009, the Slumdog Millionaire's Oscar-winning screenwriter Simon Beaufoy was hired to work on the project.[4] Plans to move forward with DreamWorks' adaptation resurfaced in 2010 with the announcement that Legend of the Guardians screenwriter John Orloff would pen the script for director Anand Tucker.[5] Tucker was later announced to direct another DWA film Trolls, which was planned to be partially based on a Pratchett novel, before he was replaced by Mike Mitchell.[6]