Everyone's Hero

[MacGuffin]

Reeve's Film Project Lives On

Christopher Reeve is gone, but, like the enduring spirit of the actor himself, his work will live on.

Yankee Irving, a computer-animated film that Reeve was directing at the time of his death, is set to continue production, according to its producer.

The film centers on a poor, baseball-playing boy who becomes acquainted with Babe Ruth during the Depression and goes on to deliver a game-winning hit for the Yankees.

Over the past year and a half, Reeve helmed the project from his home office in Pound Ridge, New York, via a videoconferencing system which had been set up by the film's producer, IDT Entertainment.

The company said Reeve had put in enough work on Yankee Liberty that production could continue without compromising his direction.

"The story is basically Chris' vision," IDT CFO Stephen Brown told the Newark Star-Ledger. "The bulk of what he was doing as a director is fairly complete."

The storyline for Yankee Liberty was developed from bedtime tales that IDT Chairman Howard Jonas used to tell his children. Reeve had described the project as "captivating, with the perfect blend of warmth and wit."

Reeve, a Yankees fan, reportedly fell in love with the film's script, which was written by Rob Kurtz, previously a scribe for The Cosby Show and Grace Under Fire. Both men were first-timers in the realm of animation.

Kurtz expressed his admiration of the paralyzed thesp's devotion to the film, in spite of his busy schedule promoting spinal-cord-injury research, the cause he made his own over the last decade.

"He would work hours and hours each day," Kurtz told the Star-Ledger. "He was determined to make it very special.

"It was the single greatest working experience of my life. He was so great as a collaborator. I can't even begin to tell you how much I'm going to miss him," Kurtz said.

IDT has not yet considered a replacement for Reeve.

"We've just been addressing personal issues and the great loss and reassuring our staff that the production will go on," IDT CEO Morris Berger told the Hollywood Reporter. "Tomorrow we'll think those things through."

Yankee Liberty is tentatively scheduled to open in 2006.

The film was not the only project on which Reeve toiled over the past year. Among other entertainment-related ventures, he guest starred as a mysterious scientist on the WB's Smallville, a modern take on the Superman story that played a major role in Reeve's career.

The producers of Smallville said that a brief dedication to the Superman star would run after Wednesday's episode. Smallville's Superman, Tom Welling, also released a statement Tuesday saying, "Christopher Reeve put strength and courage into perspective. My thoughts are with his family."

Reeve died Sunday in New York at age 52 after he experienced cardiac arrest and fell into a coma. He had been immobilized from the neck down since a 1995 horseback-riding accident.

[MacGuffin]

Trailer

Release Date: September 15, 2006

Cast: Rob Reiner, Whoopi Goldberg, Brian Dennehy, William H. Macy, Mandy Patinkin, Dana Reeve, Robert Wagner, Richard Kind, Raven-Symone, Joe Torre, Jake Syzmanski

Director: Dan St. Pierre, Colin Brady, Christopher Reeve

Premise: The story of a young boy's thousand-mile journey to help Babe Ruth and the New York Yankees win the World Series.