Computer animated movies seem to come in pairs. First there was Antz and A Bug’s Life. Then Finding Nemo and Shark Tale. Now DreamWorks is planning to take on Ice Age with their own prehistoric computer animated movie Crood Awakening.

DreamWorks Animation announced today that they’ve hired Chris Sanders to direct the movie. His previous directing credit is Lilo & Stich, and I’m not going to hold it against him since he’s also worked on such films as The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast.

The really exciting thing about Crood Awakening is that the screenplay was written by Kirk De Micco and John Cleese. Yes that John Cleese. The Lord of Funny Walks, Sir Lancelot, Basil Fawlty, and one of the greatest comedic minds in the entire history of laughing. Even better, if Cleese wrote the script, there has to be a pretty good chance that they’ll talk him in to doing a voice. John Cleese as a caveman?

The film was originally conceived as the next project for Aardman, and probably would have been claymation. But with Aardman’s split from DreamWorks, it looks like DreamWorks has held on to Crood and is now moving ahead with it as a computer animated feature.

So what’s it about? In Crood Hunt a head caveman's position as Leader of the Hunt is threatened by the arrival of a prehistoric genius who comes up with revolutionary new inventions ... like fire. Wait a minute. Someone callAdam Rifkin. That’s the plot of his new comedy Homo Erectus, isn’t it?