Sly Cooper movie coming in 2016, here's the first trailer

[UPDATE] The trailer is now live. Check it out below.

Sony today announced a Sly Cooper movie. The animated film, due in 2016, is described as a "kinetic and comedic heist film" that will tell the story of orphaned raccoon thief Sly Cooper and his childhood friends (and partners in crime) Bentley Turtle and Murray Hippo. TMNT (2007) director Kevin Munroe wrote the screenplay and will direct the movie.

Here's the full description:

Sly learns of his birth family’s secret legacy; that he comes from a long line of talented and international thieves. Endowed with this knowledge, Sly and his friends are catapulted into a global adventure as they race to reassemble pieces of an ancient book holding The Cooper Clan’s family secrets before it can fall into the hands of Clockwerk – an evil Russian metallic owl bent on ending the Cooper family line. From romantic Parisian backdrops to the lush mountains of China, gritty film noir meets bright, colorful graphic novels in this origin story of the world’s greatest thief-turned-hero.

The Sly Cooper movie is in development at the same two studios working on the big-screen adaptation of Ratchet & Clank: Rainmaker Entertainment and Blockade Entertainment.

Rainmaker Entertainment's first theatrical credit was 2013's animated film Escape from Planet Earth, which was released by The Weinstein Company. As for Blockade Entertainment, the company previously created a trailer for Electronic Arts' Dante's Inferno.

The first images of the Sly Cooper movie are included in this post. A trailer for the film will go live at 9 a.m., at which point we'll embed that in this story. The most recent entry in the Sly Cooper series was 2013's PlayStation 3-exclusive Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time.