Martin Freeman joins 'Santa'

FreemanLONDON -- Brit thesps Martin Freeman, Noel Clarke and Tim Curry will all lend their voices to U.K. toonpic "Saving Santa," which is set to begin production on Friday. Pic marks the first toon to come out of Gateway Films, the shingle behind local pics "Anuvahood," "Shank" and "Sket." Joan Collins, Pam Ferris ("Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban"), Craig Fairbass ("Call of Duty") and Chris Barrie ("Tomb Raider") will also voice characters in the 5 million ($7.8 million) pic. Story sees a clumsy elf who doesn't fit in with the other elves, but after discovering the secret of Santa's time control device, he sets out on a journey to save Santa's Kingdom after its location is discovered by an evil character. Leon Joosen, whose animation credits include "The Little Mermaid" and "Aliens in the Attic," is set to helm the pic, while Ricky Roxburgh ("The Wild Bunch") penned the script. Gateway's Terry Stone and Nick Simunek will produce alongside Tony Nottage, while Max Howard is exec producer. "We've always wanted to have an animation studio under Gateway," Stone told Daily Variety. "And this is our first step into the animation world. We're not going to stop making feature films, but going forward an animation studio is going to be an arm of our company and we plan on doing one to two animations per year." Gateway is in negotiations with a studio for U.K. rights. Gateway is also in production on $3.1 million "Get Lucky," toplining Luke Treadaway, T.J. Ramini, Emily Atack and James Cosmo, which Universal is distributing in Blighty and Oz. Contact Diana Lodderhose at diana.lodderhose@variety.com