Actor Kevin Costner is getting into the animation biz with a new web toon, according to Daily Variety. The Mr. Brooks star will produce, finance and lend his voice to The Explorers Club, a gothic adventure series that will debut online this holiday season and serve as a launch pad for a live-action movie that Costner will star in and possibly direct. Animation is being handled by Chiodo Bros. Prods. in Burbank, Calif.
A Passage to Shambhala is the title of the first installment of The Explorers Club, a collection of 12 four-minute gothic tales created, written and directed by Chris Baird, Jon Baird and Keith Quinn of Black Lamp Prods. Featuring a graphic-novel style, the series revolves around a band of Victorian-era adventurers who brave the unknown in remote parts of the world.
Costner is producing the web series with Robin Jonas, his partner in Treehouse Films, a TV and web content arm of Tig Prods. The actor and Oscar-winning director of Dances with Wolves has been putting up his own money for projects lately. He co-financed the recently released serial killer thriller Mr. Brooks, and is bankrolling a feature titled Swing Vote, in which he’ll play a voter whose decision will elect the president of the United States.
Costner will voice the role of a dashing character named Sloane in the web series and proposed feature film. Quinn and the Bairds plan to have a script for the movie finished when the webisodes go online.
Brothers Stephen, Charlie and Edward Chiodo of Chiodo Bros. Prods. are the creators of the cult film favorite Killer Klowns From Outer Space, and are also known for their animation and puppetry work on such films as Elf and Team America: World Police. The siblings were recently brought on to create animation for Born, a psychological thriller about a clay animation artist living in an idyllic English town. Starring real-life husband-and-wife team Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany, the movie is being produced by Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), and exec produced by horror author and director Clive Barker (Hellraiser). Daniel Simpson (The Uninvited) is directing. Production is set to begin in August for a 2008 release.
The brothers Chiodo also recently put out their first children’s book, Alien Xmas, which features a forward by animation legend Ray Harryhausen, and is available at Barnes & Noble and amazon.com. The trio plans to turn the story into a stop-motion feature film and tell us the project has already attracted the attention of major distributors.
