On the heels of the highly successful "Lego Movie," Envision Arts Media (EMA) agreed on an exclusive agreement with the popular candy maker PEZ Candy Inc to make a film that will star the famous flip-up head toy / candy dispensers.
As crazy as that sounds, Deadline reports that executives at Envision are very excited on the project. EMA is the film company which brought Eddie Murphy's new movie, "Henry Joseph Church," to the big screen. The company confirmed that scriptwriter Cameron Fey, the scribe of movies such as "The Three Stooges Movie" and "Brother in Law," has agreed to pen the story based on the children's candy dispensers.
Lee Nelson, EMA CEO and co-founder, says PEZ is something that can appeal to both adults and children. He also hopes that the world EMA and Fey have created will delight both the young and young at heart.
According to Independent UK, EMA anticipates that with the popularity of films, such as "The Lego Movie," the confirmed projects of other popular children's memorabilia like Beyblade, and Hello Kitty-inspired work, the upcoming project involving PEZ should fit in perfectly. If the movie does well, it could mean that several new PEZ dispensers could be made as tie-in products to the movie.
Currently, there is no word on how the movie will pan out, with no reported story or actors yet attached to the film. However, PEZ does have several thousand dispenser designs out there ranging from popular children's icons like Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny to famous politicians such as Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy. Hence, the range of characters that could be in this movie is endless.
The PEZ company started making candies and dispensers in Austria in 1927. The first designs for the dispensers were not as elaborate as they are now, with earlier ones just being simple boxes. However, the company soon turned to children as their main market in 1955 which led to the creation of the character dispensers that kids fondly remember today. Some of these dispensers are quite rare and are considered collector's items, with the most expensive PEZ dispenser in history, the 1961 Political Donkey, fetching a price of US$13,000.
Every year, over 3 billion PEZ candies are consumed in over 80 countries. Do these numbers mean that the movie based on the candy and its dispensers will do well in theaters? Only time will tell.