Russell Brand to play Easter Bunny

Russell Brand may be used to playing wild lotharios, but he has just landed his most unlikely role yet – as the Easter Bunny.

He will star in the family comedy I Hop, due out in 2011, which mixes live action and computer-generated animation.

The plot involves a jobless slacker who runs over the Easter Bunny while driving home late – and so is pressed into action to deliver the eggs and save Easter.

Brand got the part after recording a voice for Despicable Me, another animated film from I Hop studio Illumination and writers Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio, which opens next summer.

Producer Chris Meledandri told Hollywood trade magazine Variety: ‘Russell showed me that he's got a wonderful ability not only to be funny in his own body, but he can create humor vocally, which is the distinction we need for these movies.

‘This gives us an opportunity to remythologise the holiday around an Easter Bunny character that is as dynamic and irreverent as Russell is.’

Work on the film, whose title is a pun on the familiar acronym of American restaurant chain International House Of Pancakes, begins this autumn, and it is scheduled for release in Easter 2010.rn

Published: 15 Jul 2009