The Hollywood Reporter reports that Fox Animation and the team behind the surprise hit Ice Age have optioned the rights to Tor Seidler and Fred Marcellino’s children’s book The Wainscott Weasel. Blue Sky Studios will produce and Chris Wedge is expected to direct. This project isn’t expected until after Wedge has finished Robots (slated for a 2005 release) and the Ice Age sequel (possibly subtitled The Meltdown).

According to Booklist, The Wainscott Weasel centers on residents of Wainscott Woods, including a good-looking but eccentric eye-patch-wearing weasel named Bagley Brown, Jr., who has “never recovered from his famous father’s untimely death, nor his mother’s passing shortly thereafter. When he develops a crush on a beautiful bass (fish, that is), he is destined for the heartbreak only unrequited love can bring. But when the fish pond is threatened by drought and an osprey, he proves that blood runs true as he goes to heroic lengths to save his beloved”.