Director Tim Johnson tells Empire Online a few tidbits about his upcoming CGI movies for DreamWorks, including Over The Hedge and Tusker. Concerning Over The Hedge, Johnson says, “We have Verne the turtle, voiced by Gary Shandling. He wakes up after sleeping for five months and hibernating through a cold mid-Western winter, takes two steps and walks into this thing he’s never seen before – this hedge. It turns out that while he and the squirrels and his other friends were sleeping, this developer has built a hundred homes over half their woodland. Gary teams up with a sort of rascal racoon, voiced by Jim Carrey, who claims to know everything about humans and that’s where the mayhem starts. In RJ we’ve got a real sort of Music Man character – he comes in from out of town and charms all the other animals into thinking the humans are their new best friends. He says things like ‘the Humans put food into special cans and leave it outside just for you’. So you’ve got in Jim Carrey the ability to be a real hustler but with a real smile on his face.”

About Tusker, Tim Johnson reveals, “Morgan [Freeman] plays a very powerful elephant who’s sort of an outcast from the herd, but when the herd runs into humanity they come to him because he knows the ways of man. He’s another sort of sage character.” Check out Empire Online for the full interview.