Hooooly shit, I am in the wrong fucking business. We’ve got further evidence here that SJR clearly had the right idea when he switched from writing about movies to simply writing movies. See, there’s this guy, Mike Sobel, who was a lawyer in the Big Apple. One day, he decided he didn’t want to do that anymore, and he made the trek to LA to begin a screenwriting career.

And now he’s going to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars from Columbia for a script he wrote  called Animals. The script is about all the animals of the world coming together to attempt to wipe out humanity. It’s a premise that lends itself very heavily toward a message; there will probably be a scene in which a character or characters talk about how the animal uprising is Mother Nature’s way of punishing humanity for abusing her. Hopefully that conversation will be followed by a climactic final battle in which the human protagonists clash with Mother Nature herself in the bowels of the Earth.

Kidding aside, in good hands Animals could at the very least become a decently fun trip to the movies in the tradition of the watchable Roland Emmerich films. In the right hands, though, it could make for a hell of a great tentpole. Unfortunately, Animals is being handled by the rough mittens of bad producer extraordinaire Neal Moritz (Evan Almighty, Stealth, XXX). That guy has probably the worst track record for producing quality films than any other major producer in Hollywood. Any positive thoughts I had about this project have been consumed by the angry monster inside me who so badly wants a cigarette (I left my lighter at home this morning). At least I didn't get my hopes up that the film would involve the animals raping folks. I want to say I hope Moritz can get a good director to sign on, but he'll probably just get Rob Cohen.