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The Blue Man Group has pacted with producer Charlotte Huggins ("Journey to the Center of the Earth") to star in their first film.

The musical will be made for Imax 3-D with an eye toward a wider release on standard-sized digital 3-D screens.

The original Blue Man stage trio of Matt Goldman, Chris Wink and Phil Stanton will star. Lensing is expected to start next June with an eye toward a June 2010 preem.

Pic will be a new idea created specifically for 3-D film. Blue Man Group is keeping details under wraps, but Goldman told Daily Variety, "It's going to have a story, believe it or not. It's going to have real science content, and we're excited about being in the neuroscience space."

"We had a lot of ideas of things coming at you, splashing of paint, explosions of color," he added. "It's a complete mesh of everything that we love."

Conversations are under way with directors. "We can handle the 3-D and the giant screen," Huggin said. "We're looking for someone with the comedic and storytelling chops."

Several companies tried to develop Blue Man Group movies over the years, Goldman said.

"Back in Katzenberg's day at Disney, they actually assigned Frank Oz to work with us. We just couldn't figure it out. It's a hard medium when you don't talk."

But seeing 3-D movies over the past couple of years made the group reconsider a bigscreen foray.

Huggins said, "The 3-D space is a very physical space, and the comedy and drama of the Blue Man Group is very physical, so it's a good fit. It's about the physicality of 3-D."

Blue Man Group will partially finance the pic. Additional financing will come from traditional Imax funding channels, including equity investors, sponsorships and Imax exhibitors.

Huggins said, "Doing something fun and engaging with an audience with a base in science is incredibly appealing to the Imax exhibitors."

Blue Man Group has been running onstage in Gotham since 1991, though the show has evolved over the years. There are productions in four U.S. cities, including New York and Las Vegas, as well as Tokyo and two German cities.

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Blue Man Group and producer Charlotte Huggins have tapped helmer David Russo to direct the Blue Man Group movie.

Imax 3-D pic will be scripted by Lisa Robinson.

Huggins said a distribution deal is close for the pic as well.

Pic will be the first to star the Blue Man Group, which has been seen onstage in hundreds of cities around the world and in commercials. The original Blue Men -- Chris Wink, Phil Stanton and Matt Goldman -- will star.

Russo told Daily Variety the comedy will be about "the Blue Men entering the brain of a socially and creatively congested person and observing his neural patterns and his habitual brain functions and memory and altering it in a way that helps him bring his inside life outside."

Wink, who is chief creative officer for Blue Man Group, added: "We want all our work to touch you in a simple way. We're vaudevillians; we're not here with deep messages."

Blue Man Group senior VP Barbara Darwall is exec producer. Janice Doskey is producing with Huggins.

Visual development on the pic is under way and will continue for several months. Production is scheduled for the first quarter of 2010 for a release in early 2011.

Pic will eschew the new Imax screens in multiplexes in favor of traditional Imax venues such as museums and science centers.

"We have to entertain with the science being solid," Russo said. "That's very important to me, having come from that sphere."

The Blue Men, who have made five albums, are also scoring the pic.

Seattle-based Russo has previously directed short films and commercials. His debut feature, "The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle," was shown at Sundance and SXSW this year.

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