In 1941, the eponymous primate of Curious George came to life in the books written and illustrated by Margret Rey and H. A. Rey. Since then, the inquisitive monkey featured in cartoons and an animated movie from Universal, but now he’ll enter the live-action world with a new feature from director Andrew Adamson.

Deadline reports that Adamson will helm a live-action Curious George film for Universal. I’m assuming that it’ll be live action in the sense that Paddington was live action: real actors will perform around a CG talking animal. But you never know.

For those who don’t know, the story of Curious George follows a monkey who was taken from his home in Africa by The Man With the Yellow Hat to live with him in a big city. (Speaking of Paddington, it’s similar enough to the tale of the talking bear.) Once there, the animal would get into all kinds of shenanigans, as his nickname suggests.

Adamson will co-write the screenplay with an unannounced writer and executive produce the film, alongside producers Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, David Kirschner, Jon Shapiro, and Erica Huggins.

This should be a curious task for Adamson, who made his directorial debut on the first Shrek movie and went on to helm Shrek 2, the first two Chronicles of Narnia movies, Mr. Pip starring Hugh Laurie, and the 2012 Cirque du Soleil movie. Family fun isn’t exactly new to him, nor is directing an animated movie, especially if Curious George does go the Paddington route.

Universal’s previous attempt with the 2006 animated movie featured the voices of Will Ferrell (as The Man With the Yellow Hat, a.k.a. Ted), Eugene Levy, Dick Van Dyke, David Cross, Ariel Winter, and Drew Barrymore. The film ended up grossing close to $70 million, which isn’t a lot with a production budget of $50 million. That film failed to kickstart a franchise. Might this live-action attempt?