Sony Pictures Animation has acquired the Paul Hernandez fantasy project Instant Karma, which will be produced as a live-action/CGI hybrid project.

The story centers on a safecracker in New Orleans, who suffers a near-death experience only to be reincarnated as a fly. When he starts to perform good deeds as the fly, he realizes he can move up the food chain and become different animals. He keeps up the good behavior on a quest to regain human form and rejoin the woman he loves.

Instant Karma has been in development for nearly a decade, with Sony Pictures Animation acquiring the project out of turnaround from New Line Cinema, which first acquired it in 2003. Before that, the project was at Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment, and DreamWorks Pictures before that.

Paul Hernandez (Sky High) will direct from his own original screenplay, with Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides writer-producers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio on board as producers.

No production schedule was given for Instant Karma. When the project was at New Line, voice actors such as Dwayne Johnson, Pierce Brosnan, Mira Sorvino, Eartha Kitt, and Gene Wilder attached to star, although it never came together.