Film Roman, the animation studio behind FOX’s long-running primetime favorites The Simpsons and King of the Hill will produce animated films and multi-platform series with cable broadcaster BET’s newly-established animation division. BET also announced that it will reunite the Static Shockteam of Denys Cowan and Dwayne McDuffie to create a new action-adventure series.
In addition to television and new media projects, Film Roman and BET plan to jointly develop and produce a slate of direct-to-DVD and theatrical releases. The three-year, non-exclusive contract allows for international distribution outside of the BET Network.
BET’s president of entertainment, former Boondocks producer Reginald Hudlin, says viewers can expect to see animation on the channel by the fourth quarter of this year. “If Black America is a cultural superpower, then there’s no better medium to express the full range of our collective imagination than animation,” he comments. “There will be shorts that will air throughout our programming schedule as well as online content. Hopefully, by fall of next year, we’ll begin to launch our animated series.”
After winning an Emmy Award and Humanitas Prize for the kid-centric superhero series Static Shock, Cowan and McDuffie will tackle adult-oriented animation with their next series, on which BET isn’t releasing any information just yet.
“Black culture is youth culture. Where Black people go, pop culture follows,” Says Cowan, who currently serves as senior VP of animation for BET. “At BET Animation, with our creative partnerships and working with established superstars as well as young, hip creators, we hope to be the leaders of the next revolution in animation.”
Cowan and McDuffie co-founded the successful comic-book company Milestone Media. McDuffie remains editor-in-chief of Milestone’s award-winning line of comic books and is also a producer and story editor on Cartoon Network’s Justice League. He has created or co-created more than a dozen comic-book series, including Damage Control, Deathlok II, Icon, Xombi, The Road To Hell and Hardware, and has written stories for such series as Spider-Man, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, The Tick, Captain Marvel, Avengers Spotlight, Back To The Future, Hellraiser, Ultraman and X-O Manowar.
BET Animation recently signed a deal wth action star Vin Diesel and his One Race Prods. to jointly produce Hannibal the Conqueror, an animated series about storied African military leader Hannibal of Carthage, best known for marching an army of elephants over the Alps to challenge the Roman Empire.
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