Southpaw Entertainment has announced that it has hired SHREK 2 and SPIRIT director Kelly Asbury to write and direct a live-action/CGI fantasy adventure, titled IMAGINARY CHILDREN, reported VARIETY. Southpaw's Richard Lewis and Scott Peters came up with the concept, which follows a cartoonist whose characters consume his life's so much that he is estranged from his real child. Lewis will finance the project on his own with investments from his Southpaw partner eBay co-founder Jeff Skoll.

"The inspiration came when Charles Schultz announced he was retiring to spend time with his family and died right after," Lewis said. "I'd always thought of his family as the PEANUTS gang, and recalled that Candice Bergen practically grew up with a wooden puppet for a brother because her father, Edgar, spent so much time on his act that he had little for his child. Here, the animated characters live in the house with the father and a son who's completely turned off to his dad."