First Look: New Line Goes 3D With Planet 51

Hollywood is still going 3D crazy. New Line has decided to enter the new cinema revolution by acquiring Ilion Animation Studios' $60 million computer animated feature film Planet 51, which they plan to release in 3D.

Shrek scribe Joe Stillman's screenplay tells the story of Earth astronaut Capt. Charles "Chuck" Baker, who lands on Planet 51, which is inhabited by creatures who live in fear of an alien invasion. Befriended by a young resident, the astronaut has to avoid capture in order to recover his spaceship and return home. Sounds like a great concept, but I already saw a movie called Terra with almost the EXACT SAME STORYLINE at this year's Toronto Film Festival.

The animation in Planet is a lot more refined , as the production has a much higher budget (click on the image above to see an impressive high resolution look at this alien world). But to be fair, both Tera and Planet 51 were probably in production at the same time (I know Planet 51 has been in production for the last five years), so I'm not accusing anyone of stealing. It's just one of those really really strange coincidences.

Planet 51 will hit theaters in mid to late 2009. Check out some more photos after the jump (click on the images to enlarge). You will see that this film really has a great cartoony style, and doesn't look like "another bland computer animated film by one of the Pixar wannabe animation studios."  Tera had this really earthy non-technological city, but Planet 51 presents a dome-based 1950's retro future look. I'm also digging the design of the small robot character.