Written by: Rob Sprackling and John Smith
Notes
August 18, 2002 from animated-movies.com
"The Gnomeo and Juliet gallery starts in 2D but the research ends in 3D. It
uses live backgrounds, just like Dinosaur. It takes place in a garden, just
like the Tim Burton's Hollywood Chewing Gum commercial. The garden gnomes,
which remind me of Amelie's, come to life and get excited, doing pink flamingo
races, etc. Disney conducted tests with 2D characters and 3D backgrounds as
well as live contemporary backgrounds. Not my kind of magic."
June 8, 2002-Name verified that the current working title is Gnomeo & Juliet
February 2002, Dark Horizons confirmed that Elton John's Rocket
Pictures was developing a project--then entitled Gnome Story--for Disney. The movie was
described as "a CGI/traditional animation reworking of the Romeo and Juliet story set in
a world inhabited by Gnomes. It has the whole shebang like the two fighting families, star
crossed lovers etc. Both companies are very excited about this and there is great buzz
around the treatment." It is relatively safe to assume that Sir Elton might pen a few songs
for his own movie!
January 24, 2002- Dark Horizons (www.darkhorizons.com) provides more information
about the feature that Disney is currently developing in conjunction with Rocket
Pictures (Elton John's film company headed by his partner Canadian film-maker David
Furnish): "Gnome Story is a CGI/traditional animation reworking of the Romeo and
Juliet story set in a world inhabited by Gnomes. It has the whole shebang like the
two fighting families, star crossed lovers etc. Both companies are very excited
about this and there is great buzz around the treatment."
November 17, 2001-Rocket Pictures, the U.K.-based production
house of Elton John and David Furnish, announced in The Hollywood
Reporter, that it is developing an animated feature called A Gnome's
Story for Walt Disney. Rocket Pictures has just renewed its first-look
deal for five years with two mouse house units, the feature animation
division and Buena Vista International (U.K.). Scribes Andy Riley
and Kevin Cecil (Harry Enfield's Brand Spanking New Show) are set
to pen a draft.
The first solo effort of director Gary Trousdale was first mentioned back in October 2001,
when screenwriters Rob Sprackling and John Smith (Chicken Run), revealed that they had
"a project with Disney which is based on garden gnomes. It’s a little story that we
concocted using the famous English garden gnome as our lovable character, and that’s
through Rocket Pictures which is Elton John’s company. They have a deal with Disney."
