To bring some very distinctive musical accents to 20th Century Fox’s upcoming CG-animated feature, Robots, composer John Powell (Antz, Chicken Run, Shrek) got some help from the world-famous Blue Man Group. The inventive, blue-painted performers created more than 25 new metal percussion instruments to reflect the flavor of Robot City in the film’s soundtrack.
“We love the fact that John Powell is using Blue Man Group drumming to speak not only of the metal world of Robot City, but also to create a tribal, soulful undercurrent throughout the movie,” comments Blue Man Group co-founder Chris Wink.
Co-directed by Chris Wedge (Ice Age) and Carlos Saldanha, (Ice Age, Gone Nutty), the movie centers on a good-hearted robot named Rodney Copperbottom (voiced by Ewan McGregor) who battles corporate baddie Big Weld (Mel Brooks) while being seduced by femme-bot Cappy (Halle Berry). Paul Giamatti, Greg Kinnear, Drew Carey, Jay Leno, Jim Broadbent, Amanda Bynes, Robin Williams, Dianne Wiest, Stanley Tucci and Jamie Kennedy also lend their voices to the film, which is based on a book by William Joyce (Rolie, Polie, Olie; George Shrinks; A Bug’s Life) and animated by Blue Sky Studios, now a unit of Fox Animation. Read our cover story on Robots in the March issue of Animation Magazine, now available.
The March 6 Robots world premiere in Los Angeles will feature a special performance by Blue Man Group. The Robots soundtrack will be released on March 1 by Virgin Records and the original motion picture score will be released by Varese Sarabande on March 15. Robots opens nationwide on March 11.
The critically acclaimed Blue Man Group was founded by Wink and long-time friends Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton in 1987. Their multimedia theatrical productions run concurrently in New York, Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, and Berlin. A new production will begin in Toronto in June 2005. In 2004, the group won critical praise for its first television score for Fox’s The Jury, produced by Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana.
