Taika Waititi is co-directing a movie about Bubbles The Chimp
Reassuring fans worried that a trip into the Marvel Cinematic Universe might have dulled some of Taika Waititi’s weirder edges, Deadline reports that the Hunt For The Wilderpeople director will be following his upcoming Thor: Ragnarok with a movie about Bubbles The Chimp.
Bubbles, famously, was both the pet of pop superstar Michael Jackson, and also the point where people started publicly asking, “Hey, is Michael okay?” But Waititi has assured fans that the stop-motion animated feature won’t be a biography of either the animal, who still resides at the Center for Great Apes in Wauchula, Florida, or the man who owned him. “I’m not interested in making a biopic,” Waititi said. “I want to focus on telling a story that blends fact and fantasy, about an animal trying to make sense of the world. This film is not about Michael Jackson because that’s not a story for me to tell—or a story I’d be comfortable telling—it’s about a chimpanzee’s fascinating journey through the complex jungle of human life.”
Waititi will be working on the feature with Dan Harmon and Starburns Industries, whose past credits include shows like Moral Orel and Charlie Kaufman’s Oscar-nominated Anomalisa. Mark Gustafson, who served as Wes Anderson’s animation director on Fantastic Mr. Fox, will co-direct.