Saturday
15Mar2008
David Fincher Gets 'Heavy'
Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 9:30PM 
In a move with which I can find no downside, Paramount Pictures and David Fincher will team up to create an animated anthology based on the legendary fantasy magazine Heavy Metal.Yes, there have been Heavy Metal movies before. The original was significantly ahead of its time back in 1981 and it featured one bad ass guitar laden double album soundtrack. Heavy Metal 2000 felt more like an attempt to cash in than an actual concept. But this take may be the most ambitious yet.
As we learned from Variety, Fincher will direct one of the eight or nine animated segments, while Kevin Eastman (co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) will direct another, as will Tim Miller, head of animator Blur Studios.
The three filmmakers will also co-produce the film, which now begins the hunt for other directors.
Why do I love this idea so much? Point blank: There aren't enough animated films in the marketplace that represent the amount and quality of animation currently being published. By an overwhelming majority, animation is aimed at adults...unless it's in motion pictures, where the rule unfortunately has been to shape films for kids and families. And with the strides animation has taken over the past 20 years, Paramount deserves credit for making this a high profile film.
In a perfect world, the studio would see that no other major distributor is looking at the adult audience for mainstream releases of PG-13 or - as in this case - R rated animated films and would set aside some resources to produce other films in the same vein.
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