Producer Abbate Tells Few "Frankenweenie" Secrets

Animation veteran Allison Abbate gave a few bits of information on the stop-motion adaptation of Frankenweenie, which she is producing.

Abbate told HitFix.com that production will commence in early 2010, likely in the spring. The production time frame is "two years", said the producer, and will hopefully be released around or before Halloween 2011.

Previous reports stated that the film would be shot in stereoscopic 3D. But Abbate now says that that idea is actually still up in the air. Executive producer and Disney veteran Don Hahn and others have stated that the film will also be shot in black and white, but Abbate was more hesitant. "Maybe," she said. "That's one of the ideas that is being put up. I think it would be really cool." It might be a hard sell for a Disney animated film. But neither the 3D nor black and white possibilities have been entirely ruled out yet.


A still from the live-action short film Frankenweenie from 1984.

Abbate remained secretive, noting that Tim Burton is working on several films. "He's got to get through 'Alice [in Wonderland' first]," she said, and Burton will also be directing a cinematic version of Dark Shadows.

But the producer did confirm that the film will be entirely stop-motion animated. (Although a few CG or traditional cel animated elements as seen in Corpse Bride are possible, we're guessing.)

Abbate is also a producer on the stop-motion The Fantastic Mr. Fox, directed by Wes Anderson and based on the Roald Dahl book of the same name, as well as Brad Bird's The Iron Giant and Tim Burton's Corpse Bride in the past. She was also an artistic coordinator on The Nightmare Before Christmas, her first assignment on a Tim Burton film.

Frankenweenie will be shot at Three Mills Studio in London, CinemaBlend.com reports, just like The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Anderson's stop-motion film was also made on a similar two-year time frame.