Marmaduke – the trailer

[adrotate banner=”1″]Remember Marmaduke, the comic that is funny because he’s a dog? Well, here he is, in CGI talking dog form. Uh…

Oh, check out what the film is about:

THR sez:
In adapting the strip created in 1954 by Brad Anderson and Phil Leeming, the script by Tim Rasmussen and Vince Di Meglio sees Marmaduke navigate a volatile Mutts vs. Pedigrees turf war, woo the purebred of his dreams and overcome a fall from grace.

Um….
“We’ve approached the movie like a John Hughes movie with dogs,” Dey says. “The dog park is like high school for dogs. To make this kind of movie, you really have to understand that it is the dog’s world and we just live in it.

“The kinds of rich characterizations Hughes embodied in teenage stars such as Matthew Broderick in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off translate to the Marmaduke story lines, Dey says, including one theme about “the vulnerabilities” of Marmaduke.

“Marmaduke is a teenager, and he’s trying to find his way in the world,” Dey says. “It’s a boy-meets-girl story, a coming-of-age and cautionary tale. My job as director is to try to place the audience inside this world.”

Owen Wilson IS Marmaduke!

Judy Greer, Lee Pace and William H. Macy play the humans, while Fergie, Emma Stone, George Lopez, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Steve Coogan, Damon Wayans, Marlon Wayans supply the voices.

Marmaduke – the CGI movie

[adrotate banner=”1″]Garfield and Alvin and the Chipmunks have now given us the first of what will be several imitators, a Marmaduke movie! Complete with CGI dog. Yeah. I guess Adrian Monk will be happy. I don’t remember Marmaduke in either the Heathcliff or Garfield cartoons (except as a throwaway gag in G&F) but Wikipedia says it is true, and also shows that it is what the authors used to write this article. What other cartoon dogs will soon show up as movies? CGI Farley from For Better or For Worse? CGI Pavlov from Pavlov? CGI Dogbert? CGI Get Fuzzy? CGI Cathy from Cathy? And more importantly, can I get paid by major newspaper chains to copy things out of Wikipedia?

‘Marmaduke’ heading to the big screen
Fox hires helmer Tom Dey to develop film adaptation

By Jay A. Fernandez and Borys Kit

March 5, 2009, 11:00 PM ET
Fox obviously disagrees with W.C. Fields’ admonition never to work with animals. It’s a veritable zoo over in Century City.

The studio has signed director Tom Dey to develop a big-screen adaptation of “Marmaduke.” Brad Anderson created the decades-running newspaper comic strip, about a mischievous Great Dane who lives with the Winslow family, in 1954. The big dog then appeared in several animated episodes of “Heathcliff” and “Garfield and Friends.”

The studio declined comment on any specifics for the feature because the project is in the early stages of development.