"Dogs look up to us,
cats look down on us
and pigs look on us as equals."
--Attributed to Winston Churchill
Babe: Pig in the City, the sequel to the Academy Award® -winning hit Babe, is the continuing story of a lovable and precocious pig named Babe who thinks he is a sheep dog. When Babe journeys from his country farm to a faraway storybook city in a quest to help his "humans," he encounters an incredible assortment of new animals and learns through his city adventures how a kind and steady heart can heal a sorry world.
George Miller directed the original screenplay of Babe: Pig in the City that he co-authored with Judy Morris and Mark Lamprell and co-produced with Doug Mitchell and Bill Miller. Magda Szubanski and the Oscar® -nominated James Cromwell again star as Esme and Arthur Hoggett. The film, which also stars Mary Stein and Mickey Rooney as residents of the Flealands Hotel, is executive produced by Barbara Gibbs.
The singing mice of Hoggett farm also return, their musical repertoire expanded to include such varied sources as Edith Piaf, Dean Martin and Elvis Presley. Oscar® and Grammy Award-winner Randy Newman has written the music and lyrics for "That’ll Do"—the first song ever written about Babe—which is performed as an end title piece by global music superstar Peter Gabriel. The film’s orchestral score was again composed by Australian Nigel Westlake.
Babe was honored with seven Academy Award® nominations in 1995 including Best Picture and won the Oscar for Best Achievement in Visual Effects. The film also won a Golden Globe Award for Best Picture (Comedy or Musical) from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and was named Best Picture by the National Society of Film Critics.
Pre-production began on Babe: Pig in the City in October, 1996, when George Miller with co-producer Doug Mitchell and costume designer Norma Moriceau met with Karl Miller at his Animal Action kennels in California’s San Fernando Valley to discuss animal casting for the sequel. Moriceau would design costumes for the entire cast—human and animal. This would run the fascinating gamut from 150 black-and-white formal ball gowns to maternity clothes for a pregnant chimpanzee and dapper duds for her husband and brother-in-law. Before it was over, she had designed outfits for a Capuchin monkey, a Neapolitan Mastiff and his English Bulldog companion, a well-groomed orangutan and a bizarre clown outfit that is worn at the start of the film by the pint-sized Mickey Rooney and ends up on the plus-sized Magda Szubanski.
Later, the trio met with trainer Steve Martin at his Working Wildlife Ranch on 62 wooded acres in California, where he boards and trains his eclectic collection of exotic animals. Karl Miller was returning as animal supervisor for the Babe sequel and Martin had been recruited to train and handle the film’s primate players.
By day’s end, two key roles had been cast. Karl Miller’s Woody, a healthy Jack Russell Terrier, would play Flealick, an unlikely heroic character whose arthritic hind legs are mounted on wheels, and Martin’s 18-month-old chimpanzee, Charlie, would play Easy, the youngest member of the film’s simian siblings.
In November, Karl Miller and Steve Martin were given George Miller’s casting wish list. Since animals played the leads, with humans in support, the numbers and varieties needed was far greater than before. Four of the animals from Babe returned in the original roles—Border Collies Jessie and Ben, as Fly and Rex, and Whisky, the elitist cow. Babe, of course, would again be a Large White Yorkshire.
more info:www.babeinthecity.com
