Zemeckis Ready for Another Mo-Cap Christmas with 'The Nutcracker'

By our guest blogger, Rob Stammitti

Though his latest motion capture animated adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" has just been released in theaters, director Robert Zemeckis is already looking to the future with another beloved Christmas tale. This time he plans a motion-capture version of "The Nutcracker," avoiding an attempt at adapting the ballet by Tchaikovsky and going directly for the original story (actually titled "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King").

The story, for those few who don't know of it, involves a toy nutcracker coming to life and taking a young girl named Marie on an adventure in which he battles the evil and totalitarian Mouse King.

Slash Film says about the story:

"It’s a fantasy yarn which I read as a combination of moral fable and political satire and which drips with threat and dark malice. Already we’ve had at least three versions brought to the cinema - once in stop-motion, once in cel-animation, and just this year in live action"

Though I haven't yet seen Zemeckis' interpretation of "A Christmas Carol," this already sounds very interesting to me. The story has always fascinated me, but I didn't think any of the adaptations ever quite got it right, and with Zemeckis using his go-to technology (which I felt worked rather well in "Beowulf" and "The Polar Express"), this might be just what the story needs to be faithfully brought to the big screen.

While I'd be infinitely more interested in seeing Zemeckis return to the kind of things he did in the '80s (which he'll do to some degree with his upcoming "Roger Rabbit" sequel), it'll be good to see what his mo-cap technique can do with unique things like this and his planned remake of "Yellow Submarine."