Next Film From 'The Illusionist' Director Sylvain Chomet Will Either Be CG Animation Or Live-Action

Noted hand-drawn animation director Sylvain Chomet made The Triplets of Belleville, had an unsuccessful stint as director of The Tale of Desperaux when the film was in development, and now has his new film, The Illusionist, in theaters. With that latest milestone passed, the question naturally arises: what will the director do for an encore? In a new interview, he says his next film is not likely to be traditional 2D animation, but rather 3D (by which I take he means Pixar-style CG, not stereoscopic 3D) or live-action.

The Playlist talked to the director, who talked about being interested in doing 3D animation when he was developing The Tale of Desperaux, and says,

Some people think I have a problem with 3D but I don't. It's just not the same kind of animation. It's closer to puppets or stop motion than it is to drawn animation. So it's another kind of animation that I feel I can control and make films with... I don't know yet [what my next film will be]. I don't think I'm going to do it in 2D. As I told you, it takes too much time, just really, really long. So it'll either be a 3D movie or a live action. It depends. There's a lot of projects going on right now. I'll have to make a choice at one point, so we'll see what comes first. But definitely it'll be 3D or live action.

Given the context of some very positive comments he makes about Pixar, I'm taking his use of 3D to mean 3D CG animation, rather than an animated or live-action film with a stereoscopic element. But it could be the latter — check out the whole interview and see what your take is. Regardless, I think Mr. Chomet is a director worth watching, and I'd be happy to see him work in a medium that doesn't take quite as long as detailed traditional 2D animation.