The Hollywood Reporter has a story that states that Orson Welles will be back in the motion picture business. Five old reel-to-reels of the famous filmmaker have been kept by friend and author Robert X. Leed. In 1985, Leed wrote and published "Christmas Tails" which he had Orson narrate. The tapes have resurfaced and will be used in an upcoming production.
Drac Studios, the studio behind the visual effects for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, will turn the story into a 3-D animated feature. The voice elements of Orson Welles will be used extensively in the project.
This is a great story. There has been a lot of speculation about using new digital capture technologies to resurrect actors. Forbes has an article exploring these possibilities and capabilities. While I am still a little adverse to having the images of olden-day actors used in modern movies, this is different.
Drac Studios will not be using Orson Welles visually, just through these lost reels. Bringing back lost material from a famous actor's past would be a great utilization of this kind of technology. Using this kind of technology to remake Casablanca would be inadvisable. Creating a dream-team ensemble piece would also be frowned upon. However, using such technology to revive lost film pieces sounds very appealing to me.
While "Christmas Tails" is not going to that extent, it could be a testing ground for using classic actors in modern-day movies. Orson Welles looms largely over the landscape of classic movies, no pun intended. The end of his career, however, was riddled with voice performances and cameo appearances in sub-standard movies. While this seems like more of the same, it is an extraordinary opportunity for everyone involved. To have your name roll in the same credits as Orson Welles is an entirely unique opportunity. It should draw a lot of attention, it is quite the intriguing project.
Slated for a potential Christmas 2011 release, this movie could ultimately become something very special.
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