Stuart Little 3,
the continuing story of the animated mouse who becomes part of a human family,
will be made into a fully-animated straight-to-video sequel.
"There's a gigantic audience out there for
this, but it would not pay to make it a full-out feature," says Douglas
Wick, who produced the first two movies and co-wrote
Stuart Little 2.
The popular E. B. White book made $140 million
when it was brought to the big screen in 1999 with Oscar-winning actress Geena
Davis and Jonathan Lipnicki as part of the live-action Little family and Michael
J. Fox as the voice of the mouse.
The cast re-united for the 2002 Stuart Little 2 which cost $120 million to make, but brought in a disappointing $65 million.
"People love Stuart, but it would just be
too expensive to try it again for the big screen," says producer Lucy
Fisher, Wick's wife, in an interview with Zap2it.com. "And we do
hope to get Michael J. Fox to do the voice again."
Just before he voiced the popular mouse, Fox
revealed he was suffering from Parkinson's disease. Although he has retired from
being in front of the camera, he is continuing to do character voices, including
Magic 7 for an animated TV show next year. There's no word yet whether he can
do Stuart again.
Wick says, "We just got the script and we
like it, but this time there will be no live characters, it will all be CGI
(computer generated images)."