Pixar has already spun animated gold out of everything from toys to cars, and with next year's WALL-E, the studio seems poised to do the same for lonely spacebound robots. For one of its next acts, could Pixar be preparing a retelling of Don Quixote?

That's the question asked by Upcoming Pixar, where a Wikipedia entry describing the studio's summer 2009 release, Up, has led to the early speculation. The entry quotes from a TIME article which identifies Pete Docter and Bob Peterson as the feature's co-directors, and summarizes the storyline as follows:

"[A] coming-of-old-age story" about a seventy-something guy who lives in a house that "looks like your grandparents' house smelled." He befriends a clueless young Wilderness Ranger and gets into lots of altercations. Says Pixar: "Our hero travels the globe, fights beasts and villains and eats dinner at 3:30 in the afternoon."

Older gentleman, sidekick, nutty adventures...yep, sounds like Don Quixote. It's all conjecture, of course, but a Pixar take on Cervantes' classic book would have a lot of potential, no? Maybe they can get Terry Gilliam involved in some capacity.

Source: Upcoming Pixar