Riding on the success of SHREK, DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg has announced that two CGI films will go into production simultaneously at PDI/DreamWorks. Three films are currently in pre-production, and once solidified, will go into production. The first project is TUSKER, which has been floating round the studio for years. The action-adventure story is set in Southeast Asia and will follow a herd of elephants. "It is very much an homage to the classic World War II films such as THE DIRTY DOZEN or THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, in which a band of screw-ups have to go on an impossible mission in order to save the rest of the herd," Katzenberg told USA TODAY. Morgan Freeman, Jodie Foster, Gary Shandling and Dana Carvey have already signed on to lend their voices. The second project, MADAGASCAR, follows a lion, a zebra, a giraffe and a hippo who have spent their entire lives in a New York zoo until a group of animal activists decides to kidnap them and return them to the jungle. However, their ship capsizes and the quartet of creatures ends up on the island of Madagascar. The third project is SHREK 2, which will reunite the voice cast of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz.
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