By Carolyn Sackariason
Daily Press Staff Writer

Michael Fry and T Lewis have leapt from the funny papers to the big screen — and the big time. In the process, they’ve watched the evolution of their comic strip, “Over The Hedge,” turn into movie magic, courtesy of Dreamworks and its leader, Jeffrey Katzenberg.

The film opens on Friday, May 19.

Filming rights for “Over The Hedge” comic strip was originally picked up by Fox Family Films and was planned as a live-action film with human actors and CGI-created animals. But the concept sat in purgatory for five years before Dreamworks picked it up and brought it to life, or at least in Computer Generated Imagery animation.

Originally considered in 2D format, Fry and Lewis believe that CGI is the perfect format for this incarnation of the strip. And considering that “Babe” had come out in computer animation shortly after Dreamworks picked up “Over The Hedge,” the creators hoped they could piggy-back on its success.

“Ultimately, CGI was the way to go with this because there is so much flexibility but also it gives you the reality,” Lewis said.

“Over The Hedge” has come a long way since screenwriter and producer Jim Cox read the strip in the Los Angeles Times in 1996 and approached Fry and Lewis to make it into a film.

In the making since 2001 at Dreamworks, Fry and Lewis are ecstatic over how the film has captured the essence of the cartoon strip, which points out daily the absurdity of humanity from displaced animals that wind up in suburban backyards.

“They really made it easy for us,” Fry said. “That was our No. 1 thing, to capture the spirit of the characters because that is what they bought really, they bought the underlying concept and the characters.”

The making of the film was much like how the strip is created daily — in isolation. Fry, the strip’s writer, works in a studio above his garage in Austin, Tex. and Lewis, the artist, works in Omak, Wash. All of the actors worked solo in sound booths reading from the script, with lots of ad-libbing built in. But what was inspiring while at the same time intimidating for the creators was the early brainstorming sessions at the animation studio in Los Angeles, particularly with the staffers of Dreamworks.

“I remember thinking, this is the big time — Dreamworks, Pixar and Katzenberg,” Fry recalled. “This is the top of the elite of the elite.

“Whatever illusions and delusions I had of my talent were completely blown out of the water in terms of ‘OK, now we are in the major leagues so you always raise your game in that situation.”

It was that talent that Dreamworks built the film around. The storyline was generated from the more than 4,000 comic strips Fry and Lewis have created since 1995.

“From day one, there was never a doubt,” Lewis said. “We knew it was in loving hands and they went out of their way and they kept us involved.

“And it is a delightful interpretation of the strip.”