Exclusive: The Directors of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

If you're a director ready to tackle your first feature film, you could certainly take an easier route than the duo of Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who decided to adapt the children's book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi and Ron Barrett into a fully CG (and 3D!) animated experience.

Previously, they had produced the short-lived MTV animated series "Clone High" and the long-running CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother," but neither could have prepared them for the task of capturing the magic of the beloved book about food falling from the sky. Working on it for 3 1/2 years, they succeeded at making a computer-animated movie as funny and entertaining as anything from Pixar or DreamWorks, embellishing the high concept premise with non-stop humor, impressive...