The bad boy rockers of Motley Crue are taking their legendary antics to the world of animation with a cameo role in Disaster! The Movie, an upcoming stop-motion comedy feature film from Los Angeles-based production company Dream Ent. A specially created animated short and footage from the film will also be incorporated into the band’s eagerly awaited “Red White & Crue Tour 2005–Better Live than Dead,” presented by VH1 and VH1 Classics.
An animated spoof of such films as Armageddon, Twister and Apollo 13, Disaster! The Movie has a rag-tag team of space cowboys on a mission to stop a giant planetoit from colliding with Earth. The film takes cues from the Airplane! movies, firing jokes in rapid succession and relying heavily on visual gags. The irreverent and raunchy humor aims mostly below the belt with plenty of jokes about sex and other bodily functions. We’ve seen much of the movie and can tell you it’s really funny.
Disaster! is directed by Roy Wood, who worked on MTV’s Celebrity Death Match. Wood brought other Death Match alumni on to animate the feature, which has a similar look and feel as the series. The animation puppets are constructed with a combination of clay, silicone and foam over wire armatures.
The screenplay by Paul Benson and Matt Sullivan has been circulating around Hollywood for a number of years and has generated a lot of interest but was widely considered too expensive for live-action. After seeing Wood’s reel, Dream Ent. founders Ehud Bleiberg and Yitzhak Ginsberg saw a way to do it fairly inexpensively with animation. Bleiberg and Ginsberg produced the film and the Crue tour short, along with John Glen, Travis Wright and Even Astrowski.
Members of Motley Crue lent their voices to the feature and short film, which will open each show on their tour. The group’s involvement with the picture came about when band member Nikki Sixx saw clips of the movie and asked Dream Ent. to create animation for their stage shows.
“These guys are f***ing brilliant,” Sixx comments. “With their help, the Crue is out to save the world from imminent disaster. Disaster! The Movie just adds to the circus atmosphere surrounding this tour.”
Motley Crue is currently working with MTV Films/Paramount on a film based on their best-selling biography, Dirt. Several major directors are said to be interested.
Disaster! is scheduled for worldwide release later this year, with several distributors in the U.S. and Europe currently bidding on the finished production. We recently visited the set and will have more behind-the-scenes information for you soon. Until then, you can check out clips from the film at www.disasterthemovie.com. To stream the Motley Crue footage, go to www.motley.com.
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