“Film world jumping for Easter Bunny Sony Ani nabs ‘Hip Hop’; Illumination goes for ‘I Hop’”

This is a first since I started this blog: The concurrent sale of competing projects to two different Hwood movie studios. Per the Hollywood Reporter:

Easter is becoming the new battleground for studios as two competing projects featuring the Easter Bunny go head to head.

Sony Animation is pre-emptively picking up “Hip Hop” by Greg Ostrin and Michael Weiss for mid-six figures. The deal happened at the same time that Illumination Entertainment, the Universal-based shingle with a history in animation, purchased “I Hop” to act as its first live-action pic.

In “Hip Hop,” the Easter Bunny decides to retire and hides out as a pet with a suburban family, turning their lives upside down. The tone is being described as along the lines of “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and “The Santa Clause.” The plan is to make the movie using a mix of CGI and live-action.

In “I Hop,” the Easter Bunny is hit by a car driven by a slacker. When the bunny can’t hop because his leg is broken, the driver must train to take over the job and save Easter.

Warring projects is nothing new. There have been competing projects on Christopher Columbus, Truman Capote, and the Zodiac killer. Vying projects about body switching and swapping ages, viral contagions and yes, even police dogs (K-9 vs Turner & Hootch).

A studio’s inclination is the rush their project into theaters before the other one, however that doesn’t always translate into the biggest B.O. for the ‘winning’ movie. Big was the last of 4 age-changing movies and it ended grossing more at the box office than its three competitors.

Which of the two Easter bunny premises strike you as the better one?

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