The storybook about a stumpy little guy who stands on a tree stump deploring the destruction of a forest is being adapted into a 3-D animated feature by the team that made Despicable Me and Horton Hears a Who.
Illumination Entertainment chief Chris Meledandri says Danny DeVito has this wonderful ability to be "acerbic and grouchy but at the same time absolutely lovable".
"It's almost like Walter Matthau had. His comedic edge was very sharp, but he always maintained that warmth."
The villains of the film will be voiced by two alumni of The Daily Show, with Ed Helms (of The Office) playing The Once-ler - a short-sighted, greedy creature who chops down every tree he can find to make his Thneeds, which are "a thing everyone needs".
And Rob Riggle (the cop from The Hangover) is a new character - O'Hare, another industrialist who sells cans of fresh air to the polluted world the Once-ler creates, and wants to keep it that way.
The movie will start much the same way as the 1971 storybook, with Zac Efron voicing a boy named Ted (after Dr Seuss' real name, Theodore "Ted" Geisel) who goes in search of the Once-ler to find out how the world became so ugly.
Betty White will play Ted's grandmother, who tells him of the colourful world that used to be.
Another new character is the girl Ted loves, Audrey (another homage, this one to the author's wife), who dreams someday to see a real forest, not just the fake plastic trees that dot their devastated landscape.
Although the Lorax is a little guy, DeVito says the environmental message is important and vows he'll be tough.
"Look, I don't want to be gruff about it, but we've got to wake up and smell the oil burning," he says.
"I'm hoping that the squeakiest wheel gets the least grease.
"I feel sometimes the only way to get things done is shake people up a little bit, and the Lorax is not a guy who pussyfoots around. He's not a guy who uses kid gloves.
"No, no, the Lorax means business."
