Space Chimps blasts off

Forget Pigs in Space (and if you’re too young to know what that means, ask your parents) – the chimps are taking back the cosmos.

Well, at least in animated adventures. Valiant producers Vanguard and 20th Century Fox are lining up the likes of Andy Samberg (best known for the Lazy Sunday short on Saturday Night Live), Jeff Daniels, Stanley Tucci, Patrick Warburton, Kristin Chenoweth and Keenan Thompson to voice the leads in Space Chimps.

The ‘toon will follow the misadventures of Ham III, slacker grandson of the first chimp shot into space. Hoping to piggyback on the famous name, a senator shoots our luckless hero off in a spaceship, where he travels via a black hole to an alien planet and helps the locals dispatch an evil leader.

Barry Sonnenfeld’s been attached since the start as a producer, but the writing and directing chores will be handled by Racing Stripes helmer Kirk DeMicco. It should touch down to Earth next year.