‘Peabody & Sherman’ Animated Film Coming; Downey Jr. To Lend Voice

Those who remember the original Rocky and Bullwinkle show remember two sister franchises fondly. Those being Dudley Do-Right about a bumbling Canadian protagonist and his wins against the evil Snidley Whiplash, and then there was Peabody and Sherman. The latter was about a super-genius talking dog and his teen boy sidekick who would hop in the WABAC time machine and learn about various triumphs and follies in history.

Do-Right got his 15 minutes of Hollywood fame in the form of a Brandan Frazer adaptation, and now it’s Peabody and Sherman’s turn. It looks like Dreamworks is moving ahead with their completely CG adaptation, and have now cast Robert Downey Jr. in the lead role. From EW.

The project was just announced internally to the DreamWorks staff, with Robert Downey Jr. signed to voice the super-smart, bespectacled canine.

The new animated feature, planned for 2014, aims to bring the duo back to the pop culture mainstream. “Certainly for Boomers, they’re in the sweet spot of our childhood animation memories, but beyond there it gets a little bit, well, not quite as familiar,” says director Rob Minkoff (The Lion King).

A script has been penned by Jeffrey Ventimilia and Joshua Sternin, who wrote for the The Simpsons, That ’70s Show, and adapted the recent feature version of Yogi Bear. Minkoff won’t divulge which historical figures Peabody and Sherman will meet, but said the movie will focus not only on their time traveling, but also their origin story.

The studio toyed with the idea of the film being a mix of CG and live action, much the like (not so) popular Rocky and Bullwinkle film, but inevitably decided to go with a purely CG-animated picture. In 3D, of course.

No word on an exact release date, or what any of the characters will look like, but you can expect to see more as we grow closer to this year’s big film announcements after the end of the epic Awards Season.