PLANET 51 is acquired by New Line

then titled PLANET ONE back in early March when plans were announced that Handmade Films and the Spanish based company Illion Animated Studio's were to produce a big budget animated feature about an alien planet which gets invaded by a human astronaut! The film has been completely quiet for months but today's news from The Hollywood Reporter is that New Line Cinema have jumped on board the $60 million film PLANET 51, in what is a landmark deal as it will be the studio's first animated feature in it's 4 decade history. Handmade Films sold the film to New Line with no reason disclosed as to why. The film is kind of PLANET OF THE APES meets a 50's paranoid sci-fi thriller. The aliens will live in an almost 50's like American suburbia, and the Astronaut who stumbles across the planet will need to try and avoid capture and rescue his ship so he can return home. The film will be one that very much knows it's genre as it comes from SHREK writer Joe Stillman and will very likely be a 'wink to the audience' flick. Illion Studio€™s are the guys behind the video game Commando€™s, and the lead artist of the game will helm the film as his directorial debut. The film is now very much in production and is aimed to be completed by March 2009 and the search is on for an A-List voice cast. A huge marketing campaign is expected upon release with a huge video game planned which will hit all five console formats.