Blue Sky Studios (the animation company behind the “Ice Age” trilogy and most recently this year’s “Rio”) has announced a release date for their newest project. “Leafmen” will come to theaters on May 17th, 2013. This will mark the first time the studio has released a new movie three years in a row (“Ice Age: Continental Drift” opens July 13th, 2012). The animated adventure will be directed by Chris Wedge (the voice of Scrat and director of the original “Ice Age” and “Robots”.
According to The Hollywood Reporter the film is based on the 1996 William Joyce book The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs, and is about “a colony of doodle bugs who summon the mythical Leaf Men to help them vanquish the evil Spider Queen and save an old woman’s garden.”
In 2009, it was reported that both Wedge and the project would go to Pixar, but Fox ended-up securing the rights.
Speaking of Pixar, back in 1998 both “A Bug’s Life” and DreamWorks’ “Antz” came-out less than two months apart. Now, the same “Insect Battle” will take place in the summer of 2013. Three weeks after “Leafmen” opens, DreamWorks’ bug-themed “Turbo” will be released.
And don’t forget Pixar’s “Monsters University” – the prequel to “Monsters, Inc.” – will come to theaters two weeks after that.
UPDATE: DreamWorks moves “Turbo” to July 19th, 2013.