11 Jan “The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything” Opens Today!
After 28 episodes on DVD those crazy veggies from VeggieTales are starring in their second big-screen feature film, The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything (official site).
“The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything” started out as a Silly Song on VHS way back in 1997 (every VeggieTales episode has at least one Silly Song). The song became so popular that the Pirates eventually hosted a DVD countdown of Silly Song fan favorites in which they took second place. Later they were given large supporting roles in the first VeggieTales theatrical release, Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie. Now they’re starring in their very own big screen adventure.
Here’s the Silly Song that started it all. The 3D rendering looks a little rough by today’s standards, but remember it was made over ten years ago:
For the new Pirates movie some of the character designs and storyboards were provided by Tom Bancroft and Rob Corely, two of the terrific directors I worked under on 3-2-1 Penguins!. Both are Disney animation veterans who now co-run their own studio, FunnyPages Productions. Check out their blog over the next few days to see some of their work for the film.
Tom emailed me the following about Pirates:
This is Rob and my 9 or 10th feature film to be involved in and while it is the lowest budget of them all, it really turned out nice! We went to the premiere last night and were very impressed by the strong art direction (by our friend Chuck Vollmer at Big Idea), good modeling and animation (provided by Starz Animation in Canada) as well as entertaining story that kids will love.
Our company provided most all of the character designs (including the show stealers- The Rock Monsters, Cheese Curls, and the evil Pirate Robert!), as well as storyboarding the opening, ending, and sections in the middle, creating the opening title artwork (with Monika Brozda, thanks) and layouts for the cave section! Whew, it was a busy time last summer. If anyone wants to see how far under 10 million can go, this is it! So, go THIS WEEKEND and support our friends at Big Idea Productions (and Funnypages Productions indirectly), you’ll be happy you did!
Here’s the trailer:
Check out the offical site for more info about The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything.