Author: Ryan Ball

Open Season, the flagship CG-animated feature film from Sony Animation, opens across North America today with the weekend’s highest theater count. Arriving in 3,833 venues, including IMAX 3-D locations, the family-oriented buddy comedy about a domesticated bear and a neurotic mule deer is out to dethrone a certain reality-based movie about a bunch of self-proclaimed jackasses.

In Open Season, a couple of unlikely forest friends rally all the other animals to turn the tables on unsuspecting hunters. Martin Lawrence lends his voice to a 900 lb. grizzly bear named Boog, who was raised from a cub by a forest ranger voiced by Debra Messing. His cushy life is turned upside-down when he hooks up with scrawny mule deer Elliot (Ashton Kutcher) and they tangle with a seasoned hunter voiced by Gary Sinise.

The film is directed by The Lion King helmer Roger Allers, along with Jill Culton, whose credits include Toy Story 2 and Monsters Inc., and Anthony Stacchi, who counts ANTZ among his various credits. The filmmakers built the pic around the unique humor of In the Bleachers cartoonist Steve Moore, who serves as exec producer along with John Carls.

Open Season is just one of two major releases for Ashton Kutcher this weekend. The That ’70s Show alum also stars alongside Kevin Costner in the Coast Guard drama The Guardian. CG water, wild weather and other visual effects for the film were provided by Furious FX, Flash Film Works, Digital Dream and Pixel Magic.

Also opening in wide release is School for Scoundrels, a comedy starring Jon Heder and Billy Bob Thornton. Released in just over 3,000 theaters by MGM and The Weinstein Co., the movie features appearances by Ben Stiller, Michael Clark Duncan, Horatio Sanz, Sarah Silverman and David Cross. Cross’ animated series, Freak Show, debuts on Comedy Central on Wednesday, Oct. 4.

In limited release, Warner Independent’s The Science of Sleep opens wider today, picking up an additional 207 theaters. The latest feature from acclaimed director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) offers up a good deal of stop-motion animation in its many imaginative dream sequences. Another gem to seek out is Miramax’s Renaissance, a fully-animated sci-fi noir thriller from Onyx Films, Millimages, Luxanimation, Timefirm Ltd. and France 2 Cinema. Animated by Attitude Studio, the film opened in two locations in New York and Los Angeles last weekend but can now be found in six additional theaters.

The Hollywood Reporter brings word today that acclaimed and embattled actor Robert Downey Jr. has been cast as the lead in Iron Man, director Jon Favreau’s adaptation of the Marvel Comics superhero property. Downey reportedly worked out hard to get in shape and grew a goatee in order to snag the part of Tony Stark, a billionaire industrialist and inventor who deveolpes a suit that transforms him into an ironclad avenger.

The film’s script by Art Marcum, Matt Holloway, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby has Stark kidnapped and forced to build a weapon of mass destruction. To escape, he builds his iconic suit of armor and later uses it to foil a threat against the planet.

Rather than being turned off by Downey’s public struggle with substance abuse, Marvel apparently saw the actor as a perfect fit for its superhero universe, which is populated by flawed characters who have to deal with their own personal demons in addition to super villains. The Oscar-nominated actor can be seen in this week’s theatrical release The Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. He will next star oppsite Nicole Kidman in Fur and Jake Gyllenhaal in David Fincher’s Zodiac.

Produced by Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige and former Marvel Ent. CEO Avi Arad, Iron Man is Marvel’s first independently produced pic. Tapping its $525 million loan deal with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc., the company will reportedly pour more than $100 million into the production, which will go before the lens in February. The movie will be released by Paramount Pictures, which will serve as Marvel’s sole marketing and distribution partner for this and upcoming flicks based on classic comics properties including Captain America, The Avengers, Nick Fury, Ant-Man and Dr. Strange.

Animation and vfx house GigaPix Studios announced plans to produce a feature film based on the popular underground comic book Dr. Grave. The comic’s creator, Ed Vis, wrote the original screenplay for the pic, which will employ a combination of live action and CG effects.

Dr. Grave was first published by Slave Labor Graphics in 2000. GigaPix president David Pritchard describes the franchise’s unlikely hero as a sexy, middle-aged adventurer who embodies elements of Indiana Jones and Austin Powers, with a dash of Monty Python humor. The comics spoof pulp fiction of the 1950s as the crass Dr. Grave and his long-suffering assistant, Shandar, find themselves in various absurd adventures.

Budgeted at between $40 million and $50 million, the feature is being developed by Vis under the supervision of producers Kenneth Kokin (The Usual Suspects, Way of the Gun) and Bruce L. Berman of Valor Ent.

Kokin comments, ‘The main things that attracted us to GigaPix are that David has a wicked sense of humor that supports the tone of the script, shares a vision to cast the lead actors with genius-comedic abilities and has in-house CG facilities to give the Dr. Grave property epic spectacle. And if you look at the projects David has been associated with (The Simpsons, Dr Katz, Family Guy and King of the Hill while heading up Film Roman), he understands how to protect franchisable characters and build a great production team to support that franchise.’

Berman says he and Kokin have been working with Vis on the screenplay for two years. The movie will be first live-action effort for Chatsworth, Calif.-based GigaPix. Founded in 2002 by CEO Chris Blauvelt, the studio currently has four animated features in development’an adventure comedy titled Junk Bots, an irreverent rabbit fantasy titled Twilight, a sci-fi thriller titled Alien SAR and a superhero spoof titled Hypnopig. More information on the studio can be found at www.gigapixstudios.com.

The Weinstein Co.’s Dimension Films has snatched feature film rights to Image Comics’ O.C.T.: Occult Crimes Taskforce, a comic-book series co-created and co-written by actress Rosario Dawson (Clerks II, Sin City). According to Daily Variety, Dawson will serve as a producer on the pic in addition to playing the lead role, a New York City police detective who gets recruited to hunt down supernatural forces.

Co-created by scribe David Atchinson and illustrator Tony Shasteen, O.C.T. features the illustrated likeness of Dawson, who was reportedly inspired to start her own comic book after working with famed graphic novelist Frank Miller on the big-screen version of his Sin City. She also grew up around comics since her uncle is former Marvel illustrator Gus Vasquez.

Dawson is set to return in Miller’s and Robert Rodriguez’s sequel to Sin City, and can next be seen in Rodriguez’s and Quentin Tarantino’s horror throwback, Grindhouse. That film is also being released by Dimension.

AG Properties, the recently formed intellectual property and outbound licensing division of American Greetings, heads to MIPCOM for the first time with a slate of familiar brands including Care Bears, Holly Hobbie & Friends and Twisted Whiskers. The company will also unveil two new animated franchises, Maryoku Yummy and Sushi Pack, at the market in Cannes, France.

To commemorate next year’s 25th anniversary of the Care Bears property, AGP is developing a slate of new CG specials produced by SD Ent. One of the new characters, Oopsy Bear, will be the star of Oopsy Does It, which is scheduled to get theatrical and home video releases through 20th Century Fox in the fall of 2007. Fox Home Entertainment has signed on as the long-term exclusive U.S. distributor of new Care Bears content, with three additional releases planned for 2007 and 2008. AGP also acquired the Care Bears animated series from the 1980s. Previously owned and represented by Corus’ Nelvana, the show consists of 49 half-hour episodes. International distribution rights to the specials and classic series are up for grabs.

Holly Hobbie & Friends is a contemporary take on the classic brand that began with a doll. Academy Award-nominated producer Julia Pistor and writers of Jimmy Neutron and The Wild Thornberrys teamed for the new franchise, which follows Holly and friends Amy and Carrie as they spend summers together in the cozy town of Clover. A new animated special titled Holly Hobbie & Friends: Christmas Wishes will air on Nick Jr. and be released on home video in the U.S. this holiday season. Three additional specials are now available and four more are in production.

Twisted Whiskers, one of AGP’s most popular greeting card lines, is being developed as a multi-platform entertainment property. The stretched, squashed and pop-eyed pets will be brought to the screen by animator Bill Kopp, whose credits include the original Simpsons shorts that aired on The Tracey Ullman Show, and Savage Steve Holland, the writer/director of the cult film favorite Better Off Dead. They are producing a series of nine 30-60 second CG-animated shorts, some of which are available now.

The preschool series Maryoku Yummy revolves around Maryoku, an adorable creature who lives in a magical world where children’s wishes are processed so they can come true. The production of 26 22-minute episodes is being overseen by Barbara Herndon and Jill Gorey, screenwriters whose credits include Rugrats and The Wild Thornberrys.

Sushi Pack features five brave, smart and precocious adolescent pieces of sushi that came to life through a series of extraordinary events and fight crime for the betterment of all human-and fish-kind. The series for kids 5-8 is being written by Tom Ruegger and Nicholas Hollander, the Emmy-winning writers/producers behind Animaniacs, Tiny Toon Adventures and Pinky and the Brain.

The new animated movie Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles took the award for Best Animated Sci-Fi Feature at the 2006 Int’l Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival. Produced by Harmony Gold and distributed in North America by FUNimation Ent., the film will be honored at the Oct. 28 screening in Phoenix.

Picking up where the popular anime TV series left off with a cliffhanger more than 20 years ago, Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles features a cast of returning characters, led by Scott Bernard and Vince Grant, that fights to end a decades-long struggle against an enigmatic alien race known as the Invid. Details surrounding the mysterious disappearance of the legendary Admiral Hunter will be revealed and our young heroes will uncover a treacherous plot that could tear them apart and threaten their survival.

The film is directed by Tommy Yune, who worked on visual effects for the original TV series and produced the video games Robotech: Battlecry, Robotech: The Macross Saga and Robotech: Invasion. Mark Hamill (Star Wars, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm) and Chase Masterson (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Manticore) lend their voices to the production, which incorporates CG elements into the classic anime style.

Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles has also screened at Cannes and The New York Korean Film Festival, and will make the rounds at additional film festivals across North America. Fans can go to http://www.funimationfilms.com for updates on festival screenings. FUNimation plans to release the film in theaters and on DVD in early 2007.

Premium cable channel Starz has acquired Eloise, an animated series based on the best-selling children’s book series authored by Kay Thompson and illustrated by Hilary Knight. Featuring the voices of Lynn Redgrave, Tim Curry, Matthew Lillard, Curtis Armstrong and Mary Matilyn Mouser, the show will debut on Starz Kids & Family Sunday, Oct. 8, at 6 p.m.

Eloise will consist of 13 22-minute episodes and several one-hour specials starring the six year-old force of nature who fancies herself the princess of New York City’s Plaza Hotel. Residing with her British nanny and her pets, Weenie the pug and Skipperdee the turtle, Eloise keeps busy roaming the floors of the hotel, plaguing the hotel staff and guests with her mischief.

The series is produced by Film Roman, which became part of the Starz family with the acquisition of IDT Ent., in association with Handmade Films. The episodes are directed by Wes Archer (The Simpsons, King of the Hill), who used Knight’s iconic drawings as the foundation for the look and feel of the animation.

First published by Simon and Schuster in 1955, Eloise was an instant hit that spawned the best-selling sequels Eloise in Paris, Eloise at Christmastime and Eloise in Moscow. A fifth installment, Eloise Takes a Bawth, was published 40 years later in 2002. Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing will release Eloise in Hollywood on Oct. 24, 2006.

The first television series to have its world premiere on Starz Kids & Family, Eloise will air with new episodes every Sunday at 6 p.m. (ET/PT) through November. The show will also be available on Starz On Demand and on the new Vongo download service. For more information on the series, go to www.starzkidsfamily.com.

The deadline for submissions for the 2007 Animex Student Animation Awards is Sunday, Oct. 1. Sponsored by Adobe, Animazoo, ATI, Autodesk, Corel, Softimage and Toon Boom Technologies, the annual event is dedicated to the promotion of the art of animation and celebrates the works of students worldwide. Awards will be given for achievements in 3D computer animation, 2D computer animation, video-game animation, web Animation, visual effects, shorts, experimental works, editing and sound. In addition, an Audience Award will go to the most popular piece.

Animex also announced the finalist judging panel, which includes Aardman Animations Co-founder/exec chairman David Sproxton, Dreamworks Animation European representative Shelley Page, Lionhead Studio director of animation Andrew Lindsay, Electronic Arts global university relations manager Jack Lew, CG Society editor Paul Hellard, Digital Domain product/operations manager Dominick Spina and Animation Magazine editor-in-chief Ramin Zahed.

All submissions must be postmarked by Oct. 1. Prizes this year include a Gypsy 5-Torso system, which is a fully portable upper-body motion-capture system with sensors housed in an exoskeleton suit. Rules, regulations and a downloadable entry form can be found at www.animex.net/awards.

The adventures of cartoonist Chester Gould’s classic gumshoe character Dick Tracy have been depicted in a number of medium over the years, including comic books, theatrical serials, TV series and feature films. One of the animated incarnations of the super sleuth is now available on DVD with Classic Media’s release of Dick Tracy: The Complete Animated Series. Also hitting retail today are Dangermouse: The Final Seasons, The Wind in the Willows: The Feature Films Collection, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig Volume 7 and Bratz Passion 4 Fashion Diamondz!

Dick Tracy: The Complete Animated Series is a four-disc set containing all episodes from series, which aired from 1961 to 1964. Rather than solving all the crimes himself, Tracy acted more as a dispatcher in the series, delegating missions to junior detectives Go-go Gomez and Jo Jitsu, parodies of Speedy Gonzalez and Charlie Chan, respectively. Voiced by cartoon legend Mel Blanc, the characters are considered stereotypical and politically incorrect today, which makes the DVD all the more enticing to collectors since the show hasn’t been aired in years. Retailing for around $39.98, the set comes packaged with a limited-edition Dick Tracy comic book.

Dangermouse: The Final Seasons features all 21 episodes from seasons 7-10 on three discs. Produced by Cosgrove Hall Prods., the series follows the adventures of the world’s smallest spy and his slightly smaller sidekick, Penfold. DVD extra features include the “Town Hall Terrors” episode of Count Duckula, alternative Dangermouse theme song options; Dangermouse theme song karaoke and character descriptions. Fans can pick up the A&E Home Entertainment release for the suggested retail price of $39.95.

Also from A&E Home Entertainment and the artists at Cosgrove Hall comes The Wind in the Willows: The Feature Films Collection. The two-disc set features the whimsical stop-motion animated TV movies The Wind in the Willows and The Wind in the Willows: A Tale of Two Toads. Bonus materials include an Interview with director Brian Cosgrove, the Toad’s Road trivia game, an archival color photo gallery, character descriptions and “Paperchase,” a full bonus episode from the third season of the Wind in the Willows TV series. The set lists for $29.95.

The epic continues in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig Volume 7, which offers the last three chapters of the popular series based on one of the most successful anime films of all time. The DVD release from Bandai Ent. and Manga Ent. includes an interview with director Kenji Kamiyama and voice actors, Ken Nishida (Gohda) and Rikiya Koyama (Kuze). Priced at around $49.98, the set comes packaged in a collectable tin case that also contains a music soundtrack CD and a collectible toy.

With so much boy’s action fare landing on shelves, there has to be something for the girls as well. Enter Bratz Passion 4: Fashion Diamondz! Based on MGA’s popular fashion dolls, the new CG-animated movie stars pals Cloe, Yasmin, Jade and Sasha, who embark on a journey of self-discovery when they take on an “express yourself” art class assignment. The girls hit the road on a cross-country search for fashion standouts and encounter far more than they ever expected. The MGA Ent. production retails for $19.98.

Released last week in conjunction with the debut of the unadulterated original Star Wars trilogy on DVD, LucasArts’ LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy has sold 1.1 million units worldwide. Available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, PC, PSP, DS and Game Boy Advance, the game allows players to experience events from Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi with a comedic, snap-together LEGO twist.

After the first LEGO Star Wars game, published by Eidos Interactive, became one of the surprise hits of 2005, LucasArts decided to take the franchise under its own wing. Like many other game companies, the shop that George built is tightening its belt by producing fewer games and focusing on core properties. With last week’s phenomenal debut, it’s a safe bet that fans will be getting more LEGO Star Wars in the future.