Directed by: Andrew Adamson
Written by: Joe Stillman and Andrew Adamson

Release Date: 2005 or later
 
 

INTERESTING FACTS
 

On May 1, 2001, UK author Terry Pratchett signed a $1M deal with Dreamworks to have his best selling 1989-1990 Bromeliad Trilogy (Truckers, Diggers and Wings) turned into one animated film, done in computer animation by PDI/DreamWorks under supervision of Andrew Adamson and Joe Stillman (co-directors of Shrek). The first film, Truckers, "will follow the adventures of a group of 'nomes' who live in a department store until it gets demolished. They're then forced to head into the outside world for the first time, discovering their alien origins." "His Bromeliad trilogy is a wonderful blend of fantasy and humour"  explained Jeffrey Katzenberg.  "There are few authors whose work lends itself to animation as well as Terry Pratchett's." Pratchett, who lives in south Wiltshire, said that DreamWorks record on animation had won him around.  "I liked Chicken Run and Galaxy Quest, and you've got to be impressed when someone from the studio phones up from Hollywood one night and turns up for lunch in Wiltshire the very next day," he said. Director Andrew Adamson described the plot of his follow-up project to Shrek: "A small group of gnomes end up thinking they‚re the last surviving gnomes on the planet and they jump aboard a truck and end up in a department store where they find this whole feudal society of gnomes that don't believe in the outside world. They live by the rules of the signs in the store and the sign that says "Everything Under One Roof‚ they take to mean that the world is the store. These gnomes find out the store is about to be demolished and must persuade the others that there is a world outside and they have to leave. It's a wonderful comedic political satire."

  Director Andrew Adamson already gave some details on the project: "I’m thinking of doing it as a combination of computer animated characters in all live action environments" meaning the store and the outside world where they find their way to Florida. Work began on it in April 2001, with production not really starting until 2002.

  Andrew Adamson will be in charge of turning British author Pratchett's books Truckers, Diggers and Wings into one film.  "The book is so dense and we've only got 82 minutes to tell the story," he says.  "It's the opposite of Shrek, where we were expanding the story - in this case we have to take the best and most worthwhile elements and condense them down."

  The "nomes", which are the centre of the story, will be animated using the same methods used in Shrek - but it is hoped that they will be placed in a real, live-action setting.   "The intention is that the nomes will be as physical and real in the world as we are," Adamson told BBC News Online in June 2001.  "What I hope for is that every time people walking out of the theatre see something out of the corner of their eye - they will think it is one of the characters from the movie."

  Jeffrey Katzenberg, who established DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, described the film as a "natural extension" of the ideas behind Shrek.  "[Pratchett] has an amazing style and sensibility - his characters are very acerbic and very edgy and their point-of-view is hysterical. They see the whole world through this twisted, warped way," he said.   "It's very exciting and very original. Terry's come over and spent some time with us at the studio and we've got a very good story."

  On November 15, 2001, Variety announced that Andrew Adamson would direct Truckers before Shrek 2. The film will mix live action and animation. The director was at the time of the article busy writing that script, based on the novel by Terry Pratchett, with Joe Stillman, one of the Shrek scribes.

  DreamWorks honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg confirmed in April 2002 that work progresses on the much-anticipated animated-film adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Bromeliad Trilogy of novels, despite reports that the project had been put on the back burner. Joe Stillman (Shrek) is writing the script for the film, which is slated for release in 2005 or later, Katzenberg said in an interview while promoting DreamWorks' upcoming animated movie Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. "Andrew Adamson, who directed Shrek 1 and is supervising Shrek 2, that's his next project," Katzenberg said. The Bromeliad Trilogy tells the story of a group of four-inch-tall gnomes, who venture into the real world, which thinks they no longer exist. The first book, Trucks, deals with the gnomes as they leave their department-store home when it is threatened with demolition.
 
 

BIOGRAPHY OF TERRY PRATCHETT
 

Pratchett was born, in Buckinghamshire in 1948 and started writing as a child, getting his first story published when he was just 13-years-old.  He went on to work as a journalist on a local newspaper before taking up a post as a press officer in the nuclear power industry.  His famous Discworld novels introduced a whole new array of comic characters who live in a world supported by four elephants who stand atop a giant "star turtle" which swims endlessly through space.  It was this hugely popular series that changed Pratchett's life by making him one of the UK's best-selling authors. Pratchett's books have sold more than 23 million copies worldwide and are outsold in the UK only by JK Rowling's Harry Potter series.  But Pratchett's novels are not best-sellers in the US and these films could mean a breakthrough into this huge market.  Pratchett has written more than 30 novels about the likes of Corporal Carrot, Granny Weatherwax and Gaspode the Wonder Dog.  He was named an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours of 1998.