'Pirates' team sails to Paramount

Hollywood’s infamous “Pirates” (of the Caribbean that is) — director Gore Verbinski and actor Johnny Depp — are teaming up to make their first animated movie. But, surprisingly, they’re not making the big-budget film “Rango” at Disney, where their three “Pirates of the Caribbean” blockbusters generated nearly $2.7 billion in worldwide ticket sales.

Instead, the comedy about a chameleon (voiced by Depp) who gets thrown out of his aquarium in the desert and embarks on a journey of self-discovery will be bankrolled, marketed and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The Viacom Inc.-owned studio, which once would have seemed like an unlikely home for such an ambitious project, now has a solid track record marketing and distributing big animated pictures through its deal with DreamWorks Animation. DreamWorks Animation (not to be confused with the live-action DreamWorks, which has had a rocky relationship with Paramount) produced such hits as “Shrek the Third”  and “Kung Fu Panda.”

“Rango” -- expected to cost about $150 million -- is planned for release in March 2011.

So, why is Paramount making "Rango" and not Disney, where Verbinski and Depp have had so much success? A person close to the matter said that Verbinski, who has been developing the project for years, didn’t even pitch it to Disney when the project was shopped recently because he knew the studio would never give him the level of control and ownership he sought. Disney prefers to exploit its own titles and those under its Pixar label across all its businesses -- television, video, theme parks, merchandise -- and doesn't like to share too much of the profit on its big animated movies.

But at Paramount, which owns all worldwide rights to "Rango," Verbinski and Depp will get a share of the profit.

Written by Oscar-nominated screenwriter John Logan, whose credits include "Gladiator” and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” “Rango”  will be Verbinski’s first venture into animation. He will be enlisting some of the visual effects techniques he developed with George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic to create the Davy Jones character in the “Pirates” pictures.

-- Claudia Eller