Sony Pictures Animation Acquires 'Instant Karma'

Instant Karma is turning out to be anything but instant.

Sony Pictures Animation has picked up the rights to Instant Karma, a comedy fantasy from Paul Hernandez, who wrote the script and is attached to direct what would be a live-action/CGI hybrid.

SPA is picking up the project out of turnaround from New Line, where it has been set up since 2003. Before that, Karma was set up at Universal with Imagine producing. Universal and Imagine, however, picked it up out of turnaround from DreamWorks.

It is the story that has gained a following over the years with execs unable to shake it off. The tale follows a misguided safecracker from New Orleans through his life lessons from a near-death experience only to find himself reincarnated as a fly. As the hero does good deeds to improve his karma, he moves up the food chain through a variety of animals, such as a frog, raccoon and dog, trying to get back to his human body and the woman he loves.

It was at New Line that the project came the closest to getting off the ground, lining up Dwayne Johnson, Pierce Brosnan, Mira Sorvino, Eartha Kitt and Gene Wilder, among others in the voice cast.

Pirates of the Caribbean scribes Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio are producing.

Hernandez came out of the in-house Disney program and was a writer on the studio’s 2005 superhero movie Sky High. He is repped by McKiun Frankel Whitehead.