Universal Pictures has begun production in Los Angeles on Tribeca
Productions' live-action/animated comedy adventure "The Adventures of Rocky
and Bullwinkle," starring two time Academy Award(R) winner Robert De Niro
("Raging Bull," "The Godfather Part II"), Jason Alexander (TV's "Seinfeld")
and Rene Russo ("Get Shorty"). Des McAnuff ("Cousin Bette," Broadway's
"The Who's Tommy") is directing from a screenplay by Kenneth Lonergan, with
De Niro and Jane Rosenthal producing. David Nicksay ("The Negotiator") and
Tiffany Ward, daughter of Rocky and Bullwinkle creator Jay Ward, are the
film's executive producers.


Based on Ward's classic cartoon characters first introduced to television
audiences in 1959, "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle" will break new
ground in integrating dimensional computer-generated characters with
live-action sequences. The title characters will be realized by the
Oscar(R)-winning visual effects artists of Industrial Light & Magic under
the supervision of Dave Andrews ("Small Soldiers") and Roger Guyett
("Saving Private Ryan"), augmented by the vocal talents of June Foray (the
voice of Rocky in all 326 episodes of the original series) as Rocky, and
Keith Scott as Bullwinkle.


In the film, the animated characters Rocky the Flying Squirrel and his
erudite friend Bullwinkle J. Moose are living in a now desolate Frostbite
Falls, barely surviving on diminishing residual checks from re-runs of
their old television series. Meanwhile, back in Pottsylvania, Fearless
Leader (De Niro) and his notorious spies Boris Badenov (Alexander) and
Natasha Fatale (Russo) have escaped their cartoon existence and are reborn
as characters of flesh and blood, and are headed for Hollywood. There the
evil trio hatch a ruthless plan to take over the world, leaving Rocky and
Bullwinkle to go head-to-head with their long-time nemeses Boris and
Natasha, and stop them once and for all. THE ADVENTURES OF ROCKY AND
BULLWINKLE is scheduled to be released by Universal Pictures in the summer
of 2000. In 1992, BORIS AND NATASHA, a live action film that featured some
of the characters from THE ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE SHOW, but did not include
the Rocky & Bullwinkle characters, was made for television.