Comic spent four years on animated film

Tim Minchin has been left devastated after his animated movie Larrikins was scrapped.

The comic invested four years into the project, about a bilby who goes on an adventure across the Australian outback.

But now bosses at the Universal Dreamworks Studio have pulled the plug on the project, which had been due to star Margot Robbie, Hugh Jackman, Rose Byrne and Naomi Watts.

Slated for release in February next year, it would have been Minchin’s directorial debut.

Writing on his website, Minchin said he felt ‘impotent fury and sadness’ over the decision – and was now going to ‘get drunk’ at a New York gig tonight in which he ‘might act a bit bitter and spoilt’

He said: ‘I’ve recently been working in three different continents, missing my kids a lot, sleeping too little and not playing piano enough.

‘And then a couple of days ago, the animated film to which I’ve dedicated the last four years of my life was shut down by the new studio execs.

‘The only way I know how to deal with my impotent fury and sadness is to subject members of the public to the spectacle of me getting drunk and playing ballads.

‘I suspect I won’t be very funny, I won’t be doing any stand-up, and I might act a bit bitter and spoilt. On the upside, the tickets are as cheap as I could make them, and I might be tempted to buy a round.’ 

Universal bought Dreamworks for $3.8billion last year.

Published: 6 Mar 2017