Fox bags Wedge's "Leaf Men" over Pixar

“Ice Age” helmer Chris Wedge will next direct “Leaf Men,” an animated film that Fox has committed to finance through its Fox Animation label, with Blue Sky Studios producing. 

The development comes after a fascinating tug-of-war over the project between Fox, Blue Sky Studios co-founder Wedge, and Disney-based animation rival Pixar. 

“Leaf Men,” an adaptation of the William Joyce illustrated children's book "The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs," was originally set at Fox Animation by Wedge, his "Robots" cohort William Joyce, and screenwriter James V. Hart, who adapted the book with the author.

According to sources, Wedge at some point got the studio’s blessing to find a new home for the picture. He turned to Pixar. Wedge has a close relationship with the label’s topper, John Lasseter, dating back to their beginnings on “Tron.” 

Sources said that Disney and Pixar jumped and got as far as thinking they had a deal with Wedge. But when they moved to close with Fox on the project’s underlying rights, Pixar, Wedge and his UTA reps were surprised to discover that Fox wasn’t letting go of “Leaf Men” after all.

A Fox spokesman would not comment on the back and forth with Pixar, saying only that Fox Animation has now greenlit the film and is glad that Wedge remains in the studio fold.

“Leaf Men” focuses on a troop of bugs that try to save a garden andbattle an evil spider queen. The bugs turn to the mythical Leaf Men to help them.  

Sources in the animation community who followed Wedge’s near move to Pixar said it would have been unusual to see him spend the next several years making an animated film for a rival, since he’s so closely identified with Blue Sky and its role in making Fox a family-film powerhouse. 

But Wedge -- who directed the original Oscar-nommed “Ice Age” and then “Robots,” has been focused on his own directing career for some time, developing such live-action projects as “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” at Warner Bros. Blue Sky has a strong bench of directors topped by Carlos Saldanha, who co-directed the second and third "Ice Age" films and who is prepping Blue Sky's next major animated effort, "Rio."

Fox and Blue Sky are soaring off "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs." Directed by Saldanha and Mike Thurmier, the film grossed $678 million in international box office this summer, making it by far the biggest offshore grosser of the year, and the third-biggest international grossing film in history, after “Titanic” and “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.” Wedge's credited involvement in the third film is limited to a reprise as the voice of Scrat, the acorn-seeking critter who bookended all three films. 

"Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaur's" $195 million domestic gross places the film's worldwide total at $873 million, making it the second highest global total this year, after "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince."

Now, Fox Animation has raked up its next major animated title in Wedge’s “Leaf Men.”