Film adaptations of Dr. Seuss’ beloved children’s books have been pulling in boatloads of cash over the past decade or so. With the exception of the live action The Cat in the Hat starring Mike Myers, all of them have been huge box office hits even when receiving mediocre reviews — including Ron Howard’s live action take on the holiday classic How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Of course, CG animation is now the medium of choice for almost every movie aimed at a family audience and with Illumination Entertainment in search of a follow-up to The Lorax, they have decided to turn back to this familiar tale once again. That’s right, The Grinch is headed back to the screen for a third time… but will audiences be willing to pay to see it again so soon?

According to THR, Universal has hired Peter Candeland to direct a new 3D animated take on How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Candeland does not have any feature film credits as a director, but he did work on several high-profile films in the ’90s including Balto, All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 and… Tank Girl. Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri will executive produce, having overseen both The Lorax and Horton Hears a Who previously.

The Jim Carrey version of The Grinch was released in 2000, so I suppose enough time has passed that this will not be seen as an immediate rehash. Plus, plenty of people hated the live action version so they may be more receptive to something that hews a bit closer to the source material. Okay, let’s face it, there’s no way that this movie won’t make boatloads of cash, but will it be original or inspired in any way? Probably not. Are you interested in seeing yet another version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas?

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