Artisan's FHE Pictures and Big Idea Productions announced their plans to produce yet another VeggieTales adventure in joint camaraderie. The success of Jonah - A VeggieTales Movie, which made over $24 million domestic gross to date, brought about the idea for the next VeggieTale film, The Bob and Larry Movie.

The computer generated characters, script and music for the new movie will all be created at Big Idea's studio under the guidance of Big Idea's CEO Phil Vischer, Co-Founder and writer/director Mike Nawrocki, and CGI animation veteran Dan Philips. All of the North American rights to the film, scheduled to debut in 2005, will be given to Artisan Entertainment.

The Bob and Larry Movie is set to answer the widespread questions, "Why do these vegetables talk? How did they meet? Who gave them their own television show?"

The classic VeggieTales characters Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber stars in the film along with many new characters and the first human character ever to appear in a VeggieTales story.

Terry Botwick, President of Big Idea Productions commented upon the success of the first film, Jonah, as "a testament to the power of the VeggieTales brand, its loyal and growing fan base and our grassroots campaign, as well as the distribution acumen of Artisan. We are very pleased with the results of our unique marketing partnership with Artisan and look forward to continuing this relationship with our second theatrical release."

FHE President Glenn Ross added, "Jonah - A VeggieTales Movie delivered a top quality production with an entertaining story line that appealed to a diverse audience, providing Artisan with a large canvas for our marketing and distribution efforts. We are looking forward to adding The Bob and Larry Movie to the FHE Pictures slate and we hope to see even greater success on this film than we did with Jonah."

By Pauline J.
pjang@chtoday.com