[Update] A new section has been added to to Multimedia menu : R&C The Movie. It will be updated over time.

It's literally a dream come true, Sony Computer Entertainment just announced the release of a Ratchet et Clank animated movie !

Expected for early 2015, this project is being taken care of by Rainmaker Entertainment and Blockade Entertainment, both specialized in CG-animated movies, and is written by T.J Fixman, the saga's lead-writer at Insomniac Games. And that's great news!

A first teaser trailer

I leave you now with the first teaser trailer from this upcoming movie, filled with humor, and which gives us a sneak peak of our favorite franchise under a great level of detail worthy of a Pixar animated movie :^^:

>> Watch the teaser trailer of the R&C Movie

Official plot

Ratchet & Clank tales the story of two improbable heroes, when they're fighting to counter the plans of an alien with evil intentions, Chairman Drek, planning to reduce to nothing the planets of the Solana galaxy. Ratchet is the last specimen of his kind, a stubborn and impetuous lombax who grew up alone on a desertic planet, without any family by his side. Clank is a little robot with great intellectual abilities, wiser and thoughtful than his companion. When these two adventurers find the weapon capable of reducing to dust a whole planet, they join their forces to the forces of the colorful and crazy Galactic Rangers in the hope of saving their galaxy.
During this quest, they'll learn the importance of values such as heroism, friendship and the discovery of their identity.

Official statements

We always thought that Ratchet & Clank would make a great movie for all ages, and we are thrilled to see our intergalactic heroes seize their luck to shine on the big screen. Insomniac is particularly honored to play a major and decisive role in the production of the movie, from the story to the animation, going through the characters' development, as well as a new marketing support.

I think Ratchet & Clank is particularly well suited for CGI adaptation given its stylized nature. By being able to integrate our in-game assets, the Ratchet & Clank film is inherently authentic. That sense of authenticity is what gamers want when they see a game-based movie. All too often, Hollywood directors take the premise of an already cool games universe and completely re-imagine it for their own purposes. What players experience on a console and see in the theater don’t match up, and that leaves a sense of viewer disappointment. Insomniac would never agree to participate in helping create a Ratchet & Clank movie were it not for our ability to guide script development, and consult on character creation and animation support. With that in mind, we hope gamers are as excited about the Ratchet & Clank film as we are – our goal is to shatter the perception that authentic games-to-film adaptations can’t get made in Hollywood.

What we have with Ratchet and Clank is access to a franchise that was built in a production environment that can be easily transitioned over to a CG film. We’re using the game assets as design reference for our model builds and character performance. The digital game assets will also be utilized in the pre-visualization phase allowing us to block the scenes using CGI characters and in some cases locations. When it’s possible to utilize the game assets – characters, locations and props, for Previz and design reference, this will significantly reduce our preproduction phase, allowing us to move quicker into animation.
When a game sells over 26 million units worldwide, that is a significant advantage in trying to get people to pay attention to your film. For many animated films, they need to spend a lot of time and money marketing their new story. With our built in fan base, we already have that initial visibility, and can instead work on ways to expand the audience.

Rainmaker has built a robust feature film pipeline. Not having the high budgets of typical Hollywood animated films, we’ve had to employ a production methodology that gives our talented crew of artists the technical tools needed, to deliver the high quality results on screen. This will include utilizing the latest technology to produce the film in stereoscopic 3D.