Looks like we know how Jason Lee spent his youth when he wasn’t perfecting tricks on a skateboard or worshipping at the altar of Burt Reynolds: he was watching lots of cartoons.
How else do you explain him signing up to be part of not one but two adaptations of classic American cartoons? He’s already finished work on Underdog, which sees him voicing the superhero pooch in the film, which arrives this summer.
Now he’s agreed to play the role of David Seville in Alvin And The Chipmunks for Fox 2000. For those unfamiliar with the annoying warbling rodents, the titular beasties are a musical group prone to harmonising and also to causing no end of chaos for their “father”, Seville.
The movie will be a blend of humans such as Lee and CG chipmunk characters, much in the same way as Roger Rabbit or (cry now) Garfield. And the director of one of the more recent cinematic crimes to darken the good name of CG/live-action crossovers – Garfield: A Tale Of Two Kitties – Tim Hill, will be behind the camera.
It all gets started later this month, as soon as Lee has more free time from shooting quality sitcom My Name Is Earl, with Fox hoping to shove the result into cinemas by mid December.
