As if to conicide with the 150th anniversary of Beatrix Potter’s birth, Sony Pictures is beginning to assemble a collection of A-listers to tell the tale of Peter Rabbit.
Pitched as a live-action/animated hybrid, word of the casting spree hails from Variety, confirming that The Late Late Show host and funnyman James Corden (Into the Woods, Gavin and Stacey) has agreed terms to voice Peter. He’ll be joined in the voice booth by Elizabeth Debicki and The Force Awakens alum Daisy Ridley – possibly as two of Peter’s three sisters, Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail? There’s also the role of Peter’s mother Mrs. Josephine Rabbit, while Rose Byrne is said to be attached to the live-action part of Bea.
VFX studio Animal Logic is pledging its support to Sony’s modern retelling, and production is expected to get underway after the turn of the year ahead of a theatrical release in April of 2018. Presiding over a massive archive of stories – from The Tale of Benjamin Bunny to The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies – Variety’s report goes on to tease Peter Rabbit’s franchise potential, given the studio has partnered with original publisher Frederick Warne & Co., part of Penguin Random House UK, to engineer a huge marketing push in anticipation of that 2018 release date. Ensuring Peter Rabbit is a household name in two years’ time will be top of the calling card, no doubt, though at least based on this casting coup, the feature film is off to a commendable start.
Before lending his vocal chords to Peter Rabbit, James Corden is part of the star-studded ensemble featured in DreamWorks’ Trolls movie. It’ll bow on November 4. Ridley, meanwhile, has Star Wars: Episode VIII in the pipeline.
