Edison and Leo producer Perfect Circle Productions has set up a five-picture production slate that will include stop-motion and traditional 2D animation, the Vancouver company announced Wednesday.

Among the directors attached is Seth Kearsley, director of the Adam Sandler Hanukkah comedy Eight Crazy Nights, and a regular director of the animated TV comedy Family Guy. Kearsley’s project with Perfect Circle is Heaven Sent, one of two adaptations of work by graphic novelist Ben Dunn. The second Dunn project, The Warrior Nun Areala, imagines a secret Vatican-sanctioned society of warriors led by a beautiful young nun named Sister Shannon. No director is attached.

Speaking to Playback Daily, Perfect Circle partner Dean English said the connection with Kearsley was established when the company was canvassing L.A. managers and agents for a director for Edison and Leo. ‘I asked one manager to suggest all the directors who were the most out-there,’ he said, adding: ‘We’re really lucky to work with a director of Seth’s caliber. I am confident he will do a stellar job.’ As for Dunn, English describes him as ‘the best manga author in the U.S. today.’

The first project to camera will be Ann Marie Fleming’s Ming Rose: Slammer, which is scheduled for a May start date. The coming-of-age story follows a young Canadian poet who travels to Iran and discovers some uncomfortable truths about herself.

Up next is Edison and Leo director Neil Burns with two stop-motion projects he plans to shoot back-to-back. Cheddar Island is a re-imagining of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island with mice and rats as the lead characters. The second is an adaptation of Canadian novelist Paul Quarrington’s Home Game, the story of a traveling circus freak show. Burns has described the concept as ‘The Bad News Bears as if it was imagined by Tod Browning and Tim Burton.’