Ignoring the lackuster track record of such animated bombs as Final Fantasy, Dreamworks is putting their muscle behind Vanguard Animation and their non-Oddworld movie idea, “Citizen Siege.” Hopefully getting out from the umbrella of a lumbering studio mixed with the fact that Vanguard’s video games indicate they actually care about sstorytelling will result in something satisfying and different, not a CGI feature that’s considered adult just because the characters curse and swear.

“Citizen Siege” is a dark political thriller set in the near future that Lanning will direct and “Shrek” producer John Williams, head of Vanguard, will produce.

Lanning and McKenna are co-founders of vidgame developer Oddworld Inhabitants, which moved away from making games in the past year to focus on turning “Siege” into a combined film and vidgame property.

Now that Vanguard has come aboard to make the pic, Oddworld is looking for a vidgame publisher to create a tie-in game that could be released simultaneously.

Lanning noted that because the major studios have been focusing their animation efforts exclusively on family pics, he and McKenna initially attempted to sell “Citizen Siege” as an effects-heavy live-action film he wouldn’t have directed.

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