Fox Animation Studios, the outfit behind Anastasia, FernGully 2, and Fantastic Mr. Fox, is set to bring the classic 1936 children's book, Ferdinand the Bull by American author Munro Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson, to the big screen as a feature animated film. Vulture is reporting that Carlos Saldanha, a director on all three Ice Age movies and of the forthcoming Rio will be developing it to direct.

The children's book tells the story of a bull who would rather smell flowers than fight in bullfights. He sits in the middle of the bull ring failing to take heed of any of the provocations of the matador and others to fight.

The book was released nine months before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, but was still seen by many supporters of Francisco Franco as a pacifist book. It became a target of the right wing, being banned in many countries, and—perhaps because of that suppression—was promoted by many on the left. It was one of the few non-Communist books promoted in Soviet-occupied Poland.

Though this will not be the first time the lovable children's story has been brought to the big screen, it will be the story's first feature-length adaptation. In 1938, the story was adapted by Walt Disney as a short animated film entitled Ferdinand the Bull, in a style similar to his Silly Symphonies series (and sometimes considered an unofficial part of that series). Ferdinand the Bull won the 1938 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons).

No word however, on whether Ferdinand's mother will finally stop worrying and wanting him to "play with the other little bulls and skip and butt his head."