By Robbie
Graham
Recognising this, the best minds at
Disney have decided to move forward with what Variety describes as a
“long-gestating sci-fi family comedy” called The
Pet, about “a man who’s abducted by aliens, taken to their planet and
turned into a family pet.”
The script for the live-action movie
was originally penned by Matt Lieberman (Short Circuit), but was recently
rewritten by Tim Dowling (This Means
War). Walt Disney Pictures and producer Scott Rudin have chosen Jared
Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) to
direct.
This won’t be the first time Disney has
explored the abduction phenomenon. It did so notably in 1986 with Flight of the Navigator, which was a
thoughtful and emotional film, albeit fairly light-hearted. It did so again in
2006 in collaboration with Pixar with the short film Lifted, which encourages the viewer
to sympathise with the alien abductor, rather than the human abductee; and yet
again in 2011 with Mars Need’s Moms, in which
emotionally stunted Martians abduct Earth moms in order to extract their
maternal instincts for the benefit of their own babies.
Disney’s The
Pet is still awaiting a release date. Sometime in 2013 seems
likely.
