Orson Welles In New Movie?

The late Orson Welles is to narrate a new children’s film, “Christmas Tails”, which is currently in development. A rare recording of the Falstaffian filmmaker narrating a children’s Christmas novel has been unearthed and is the basis of this new movie.

Drac Studios is behind the film’s development and will be helmed by Todd Tucker. Drac Studios was the studio best known for virtual makeup and special effects for movies like David Fincher’s 2008 film “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Criterion Collection #476). “Christmas Tails” will be a 3D live action/CG hybrid much like James Cameron’s “Avatar”.

“It’s a movie about how Santa’s dog saves Christmas, but on one level, this a story about the discovery of Orson’s lost tapes,” Drac Studios president Harvey Lowry said. “This is a substantial find. It’s something that a filmmaker dreams of.”

Writer Rober X. Leed published the children’s book in 1985 and had his friend, Orson Welles, narrate it. Welles died a few months later but the five reel-to-reel recordings were kept in a closet in Leed’s Las Vegas home.

The recordings were found and restored by Chemical Records through a process of cleaning and digitizing Welles’ voice.

“Christmas Tails” is set to be released for Christmas 2011.

How do you feel about a post-humus Orson Welles making his return to the big screen? Do you think this will be an instant children’s classic like “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” which used the recordings of Boris Karloff to narrate? Or do you think this will be more like Orson Welles’ appearance in 1986’s “Transformers The Movie”?