Horton Hears a Who! is a 2008 CGI animated film based on the 1954 book by Dr. Seuss. It stars the voices of Jim Carrey and Steve Carell. It’s being produced by Blue Sky Studios and released by 20th Century Fox and is set to be released on March 14. The story goes that one day, Horton the elephant (Jim Carrey) hears a cry for help coming from a speck of dust. Even though he can’t see anyone on the speck, he decides to help it. As it turns out, the speck of dust is home to the Whos, who live in their city of Whoville. Horton agrees to help protect the Whos and their home, but this gives him nothing but torment from his neighbors, who refuse to believe that anything could survive on the speck, and one of them, Sour Kangaroo (Carol Burnett), is determined to destroy it, going to lengths of asking a vulture hitman and The Whickersham Brothers to carry out her dirty work. Still, Horton stands by the motto that, “Even if you can’t hear or see them at all, a person’s a person, no matter how small.”

Asked about this upcoming film, Jim Carrey replied, “It’s going to be beautiful. I love, and have always loved all Dr. Seuss stories and I’m lucky enough to have been the Grinch. Audrey Geisel, Dr. Seuss’ widow, liked what I did with the Grinch and she asked me personally to do the voice of Horton. At the heart of the movies are the characters, and in Horton, Geisel has created a character with an unwavering moral center, a charming innocence, and a selfless willingness to protect others, even at his own expense. Of the all the books that Dr. Seuss wrote, Horton Hears a Who is one of his strongest narratives, with enormous stakes - the entire fate of a world hangs in the balance. Geisel surely had one of the greatest imaginations of the twentieth century.”

Carrey says the idea of playing Horton the elephant really appealed to him, “I love that idea that a person is a person no matter how small and the idea of worlds within worlds within worlds. Because sometimes I sit out in my backyard and I look at the birds, and a hummingbird will come down ‘wap’ goes flying past my head and will threaten me and stuff like that. I realize that he has no respect for my deed to the land, you know? That’s his property as far as he’s concerned. And that’s just the reality… We think that we’re the ones in control. Everybody does.”

Jim Carrey and Steve Carell (The Office TV Series) worked together again for this film and they worked before on Bruce Almighty. Carell took over the lead role for the sequel, Evan Almighty. Although Carrey and Carell are both providing voices in Horton Hears a Who – Carrey as Horton and Carell as the Mayor of Who-Ville – they didn’t do their voice recordings together and probably won’t see each other until it’s time to do full press for that animated family film.

“Everybody pretty much does their voices solo in a studio,” Carrey said, “because everyone has a different schedule, but we’ll be out promoting it together I’m sure in a few weeks.”