[mmm skyscraper]

Originally Posted by b.miller

as a "return to form" this is not enough.

Do you think Corpse Bride will be?

About the squirrels:

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news05/charlie.php

These aren't CG squirrels though, for much of the time these were real - Zanuck says "We trained 40 squirrels for four months. All squirrels are born at the same time in March, and they were taken right from birth to our little school, so that's all they knew. After that, you have to be careful, because you can't just send them out into the woods because they wouldn't be able to make it. It was amazing that they were able to do what we required them to do... The trainer aged ten years at least during the process until the first shot, because he had never trained squirrels before. He said it was the toughest animal he had to train".

One of the said tricks involved two squirrels simultaneously having to run up and over one of the young child actors which was a tricky feat. The other half of the time the critters are animatronic. On a quick visit to the practical effects house for the film, we saw a bunch of robot squirrels standing around or on sticks with tiny metal claws that look frighteningly real. There was also a giant squirrel eye for one shot involving one of the kids getting a little too close. They weren't the only things that weren't robots - part of the time so were the Oompa Loompas.