The first promo poster for the feature film adaptation of the children’s book character Paddington Bear has gone online. Paddington will feature a mix of CGI and live-action, with the titular teddy bear being created using CGI animation. Author Michael Bond’s best selling books center on “a brown bear from Peru who is found at Paddington station by the Brown family,” and Paddington is being brought to the screen by Harry Potter producer David Heyman. The poster boasts a 2014 release date, so it’ll presumably be awhile before we see any footage from the pic. Paul King (The Mighty Boosh) is directing, and this poster teases Paddington’s adorable signature outfit consisting of a raincoat and hat.
Hit the jump to check out the poster. Voice and live-action casting has yet to be announced.
Poster via Bleeding Cool.
Per Wikipedia, here’s some more info on Paddington Bear:
Paddington is an anthropomorphised bear. He is always polite—always addressing people as “Mr.”, “Mrs.” and “Miss” and very rarely by first names—and well-meaning, though he inflicts hard stares on those who incur his disapproval. He likes marmalade sandwiches and cocoa, and has an endless capacity for getting into trouble. However, he is known to “try so hard to get things right”. He is an adoptive member of the (human) Brown family, and thus gives his full name as Paddington Brown.
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Paddington Bear is a Bad-Ass!
I’m assuming the tone is akin to Taken.
Now, THAT my friend, is a movie I’d pay to see…
“I’m a bear with a particular set of skills…”
Now, THAT’s a movie I’d pay to see…
“I am a bear with a particular set of skills…”
I think they’re going to pull a PG version of Ted
Michael Bay behind this?
About TIME already!
I understand that they’re going on an original screenplay rather than an adaptation of any of the Michael Bond books–which makes sense, since the books are more like short story collections with each chapter being an “episode” of Paddington’s adventures. (And don’t you love how nobody in London thinks a four-foot-tall talking bear is the slightest bit weird?)
Now, my only worry is that they might mess with the underlying story too much. The early synopsis says “a young English boy befriends a talking bear.” I hope they don’t downplay the entire Brown family. If it’s just Jonathan Brown who’s sort of the “audience identification character,” that’s fine. But please, please don’t let them pull a “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” and junk the entire story structure to make up their own…
If they play their cards right, this could be a latter-day “Mary Poppins.”
(Oh, and they’ll be missing quite an opportunity if they don’t cast John Cleese as Mr. Curry…)