Katherine Heigl, Will Arnett, Brendan Fraser And More To Lend Their Voices To The Nut Job

They name children's movies all kinds of weird and wacky things these days - earlier this year we saw a movie called Oogieloves and last year brought Gnomeo and Juliet. But now a new strangely titled kids project has arrived on the horizon and it's called The Nut Job. And it has brought on a cast.

Deadline has learned that Katherine Heigl, Will Arnett, Brendan Fraser, Stephen Lang, Sarah Gadon, and Jeff Dunham will all be lending their voices to the movie, which is being made by the Canada-based animation company ToonBox Entertainment along with Korea's Redrover Co, Ltd. The film is based on a short film from 2005 called Surly Squirrel and is set in the 1950s in a place called Oakton. At the center of it is a squirrel named Surly and a rat named Buddy who try to work out plans to rob a nut store. While Thom Chapman released a statement saying , "Each voice is perfect for their respective roles," the news report doesn't say what parts the actors will be playing.

The film is being directed by Peter Lepeniotis, who directed the original short, and is being written by Lorne Cameron, a former Walt Disney Animation writer who worked on projects such as Brother Bear and Over The Hedge. This will be Lepeniotis' first feature gig, but he previously served as an animator on films including Toy Story 2, Casper, and Fantasia/2000. To get a sense of what the movie will be like check out the original short below as well as a promo poster for the theatrical release.

Eric Eisenberg
Assistant Managing Editor

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.