The rumor that Angelina Jolie and rocker Billy Idol (what a pair they’d make) would be teaming up for a proposed animated family film has been around for a while now. Well, we can now report that that rumor is officially null and void. Do you think the term “family film” might have killed it?

“Cat Tale,” the animated story about, what else?…talking animals, was slated to pair-up the two superstars for the first time along with actors like Sean Astin, R. Lee Ermey, Alan Cumming, Chazz Palminteri, Wayne Knight and Michael Richards doing voice work for the supporting animal cast. This would have been the first re-teaming of Knight and Richards since their “Seinfeld” days together as Newman and Kramer.

The plot of the film was to center around a cat who grows up in Dogtown, but wants to seek out his roots in Catopolis.

“‘Cat Tale’ is on the shelf,” director Kevin Munroe said in an interview. “It’s not a slight on what’s been done. It worked really well for what it was. It’s the timing. It was the decision that…it’s not what the company wants to do.”

Another reason Munroe gave for shelving this project was Imagi Animation Studios’ desire to get more into the ever-growing popularity of the scifi/fantasy genre and to begin gearing their animation to an adult-saavy audience that will allow for more edgy content in the storylines.

I would think that with the likes of a Jolie, Idol and the rest of the cast mentioned, “Cat Tale” could have easily been re-vamped into an adult feature. Don’t know if it would fly as science fiction, but it would be one heck-of-a fantasy.