James Franco, Marion Cotillard among Saint-Exupery’s “Little Prince” stars

PanARMENIAN.Net - James Franco, Rachel McAdams, Jeff Bridges, Marion Cotillard, Benicio Del Toro and Paul Giamatti are on board to voice characters in a big-screen take on The Little Prince, the classic French novella by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Hollywood Reporter said.

The adaptation is shaping up to have a stacked voice cast, including three recent Oscar winners in Bridges, Cotillard and Del Toro.

Mark Osborne, who directed Kung Fu Panda, is helming the project, which is being produced by Onyx Films’ Aton Soumache -- who produced the stylish 2006 animated film Renaissance -- and Dimitri Rassam.

The story centers on a pilot who crash-lands in the Sahara desert and comes across a little boy who says he is a prince fallen to Earth from his home on an asteroid. As the pilot repairs his plane, the little prince regales him with stories about his home and the foolish inhabitants of nearby asteroids.

Bridges will voice the pilot. It was not revealed which roles the other actors were taking on. The book, published Le Petit Prince in 1943 and translated from French into dozens of languages, proved to be a hit due to its philosophical nature, appealing to both adults and children.