Shane Acker's Film 9 Scheduled for Release in 2009

In 2005, director Shane Acker received an Oscar nomination for his animated short film 9. On September 9, 2009, the like titled animated film - produced by Tim Burton and Russian Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov - will be released on a fitting date. The feature film 9 will tell more of the story than Shane Acker's original short film about rag dolls fleeing from a giant robot in a junkyard.

The CGI animated film 9 takes place in a parallel world in which humans do not exist and the sentient rag dolls (given numbers rather than names) are living in a post-apocalyptic state. They seek out one of their kind who exhibits skills at leadership (this character, 9, is voiced by Elijah Wood) in order to help themselves survive in a world overcome by machines with evil intentions. According to the trailer itself and popular movie information site IMDB, voices of the characters include Martin Landau as 2, an old inventor, John Reilly as a mechanic named 5, Jennifer Connelly portraying a warrior who goes by 7, Crispin Glover as 6, an artist, and Christopher Plummer as 1, who is a war veteran.

9's recently released trailer (which can be viewed in high definition on Apple's site or on YouTube) appears to retain much of the look of Shane Acker's 2005 short film. It does not appear that the animation style has changed too much since, but that isn't a bad thing in this case - Acker's stylistic approach to the animation in his short film was very original, and changing it might have been detrimental to the film's reception.

So far the film has gained praise for its dark and polished animation, as well as the idea that it is not a film for children. Few mainstream animated films today are released for adults, and this is one such rare film that has the potential to not only be mainstream, but successful as well. With an all-star cast doing voices, some mega talents in the animation department, and established directors and producers in the business backing it, 9 has plenty of room for success.

Comments on blogs about the film (such as on SlashFilm.com) have compared the style of the film to the successful Wall-E and LittleBigPlanet, a video game. The good news for Acker is that most of the comments have been in a positive light thus far, and enough interest built up over time will mean a successful film.

Danny Elfman, a frequent Burton collaborator, will be composing the soundtrack to 9 and Pamela Pettler (writer of the screenplay to Burton's The Corpse Bride) and Shane Acker have written the screenplay.

Sources:

Peter Sciretta, 9 Movie Trailer, /Film

Brad Brevet, 9 (2005), IMDB.com

IMDb, 9 (2009), IMDB.com