SEOUL – The French best-selling novel "Empire of the Ants" is being developed as a big-budget French-South Korean movie co-production.

          Pic, "Kaemi," ('ant' in Korean), will be helmed by Korean animation director Kim Moon-saeng (second ref: Kim) and delivered as a mix containing 60% 3D animation and 40% live action. Kim was approached by the book's author Bernard Werber after seeing Kim's "Wonderful Days."

          Production is headed by Korea's Studio 3303 and French and Korean companies are expected to split the Euros10 million ($15.8 million) budget. France and Korea recently completed a bilateral co-production treaty which allows pics from both territories to be considered as local in each other's markets, but a French partner has yet to be locked in.

"Empire of the Ants" was first published in 1991 and has been translated more than 30 languages selling more than 2 million copies in total. Werber helmed his first movie film "Nos amis les Terriens" (Our Earthmen Friends), which was produced by Claude Lelouch and released in April 2007.

          Werber is hugely popular in Korea and is currently touring the country. "Ants are creatures which surpass human beings in numbers and have the largest civilization on earth. Ants have successful social structures and organizations even human beings have not attained. I'd like to get these points across in the movie," he said.

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