Animation Magazine

Author: Ryan Ball

  • DreamVision’s Animation Plans Unshakable

    London-based DreamVision Motion Pictures and Television announced that it has developed a proprietary 3D animation process that will be used to make its first feature-length, animated movie. Titled Anna, the musical production will be a companion to a live-action adaptation of author Paula Felps’ Unshakable, which the studio is also producing.

    Based on a true story, Unshakable chronicles the mysterious events that began in December of 2002, when a dream led a man to seek out a child at the opposite end of the world. The animated Anna will re-tell the story for children. Both films will be produced by DreamVision Universal Studios, Florida with domestic/international theatrical distribution handled by the DreamVision Distribution arm.

    DreamVision set its sights on the lucrative world of family-friendly animation nearly 8 years ago. The new animation unit will expand the company’s operations beyond motion picture production/post production services, digital special effects, music production, technical development, live theatrical development/production and television production.

  • Vote for Your Pitch Party Faves!

    We’ve received a lot of great animation ideas for the fifth annual Animation Magazine Pitch Party, and now it’s your turn to decide who gets a thumbs up! As our judging panel of industry execs deliberates, you too can help discover new talent and fresh ideas for animated television. Simply go to www.animationmagazine.net/pitch_party_06_vote.html and vote for your favorites. Results of the online reader poll will be announced along with our judges’ picks and staff favorites in the August issue of Animation Magazine and live at the San Diego Comic-Con.

    The Pitch Party offers independent artists an opportunity to advertise their animated properties for a greatly reduced rate in the pages of Animation Magazine, which is read all over the world. Our esteemed panel of judges then reviews all entries and selects one winner for the opportunity to pitch their ideas to the participating execs of their choice.

    This year’s official judges include Spawn creator Todd McFarlane, Radar Cartoons exec producer Rita Street, Sony Pictures Animation senior VP of development Nate Hopper, Nickelodeon animation development director Peter Gal, Kids’ WB! senior VP/GM Betsy McGowen, Exodus Film Group exec producer Max Howard, DIC Ent. chief creative officer Michael Maliani, Gotham Group founder and CEO Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Jetix Europe senior VP of programming Michael Lekes and [adult swim] director of development Nick Weidenfeld.

    As an online voter, you too can help get someone noticed by the animation community and possibly get their big break! You only have one week to get your votes in, so get started today!

  • DC Comics, POWERade Animate LeBron James

    NBA superstar LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers is the star of a new series of animated adventures and online comics from Coca-Cola sports-drink brand POWERade and DC Comics. James lends his voice and likeness to King James, a string of serials that takes his on-court prowess to superhero proportions.

    “I’ve always been a big fan of cartoons and comics, so seeing the King James character battling fictional foes in an animated series is very cool,” says James. “After reviewing the artwork and recording the voiceovers, it was awesome to see the story come to life.”

    POWERade and DC Comics introduced LeBron’s superhero persona in 2004 with a popular print edition of the King James comic. All of the comics can be viewed online at www.us.powerade.com, but the animated mini-movies are available only as premium content to members of the newly launched POWERade Athletic Club, a consumer loyalty program that allows users to customize their membership rewards by collecting codes from specially marked POWERade products. The movies will feature extra chapters that take place between scenes of the comic.

    In addition to viewing the animated shorts and exclusive artwork from DC, the POWERade Athletic Club offers sports fans opportunities to win video games, posters, collectors items, athletic gear and more. There’s even a sweepstakes where the grand prize is a trip to New York City to meet James and tour DC Comics, home to such iconic characters as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Sandman.

  • Mattel, FUNimation in Spider Riders Web

    Mattel has been awarded the master toy license for Cookie Jar Ent.’s new animated action series, Spider Riders, and FUNimation Ent. will manufacture and distribute home video releases of the show, which will join the Kids’ WB’s! Saturday morning lineup on June 17 at 10:30 a.m. (ET/PT). Co-produced by Japanese advertising agency Yomiko and Japanese animation studio Bee Train Spider Riders is a property of Cookie Jar’s new action-adventure brand, Coliseum.

    Directed by Koichi Mashimo (.hack//SIGN, Gatchaman Fighter) Spider Riders is based on Cookie Jar’s book Spider Riders ‘ Shards of the Oracle, written by Emmy award-winners Tedd Anasti and Patsy Cameron-Anasti, and published by Newmarket Press. The anime-inspired show takes place in the world of Arachna, where a young boy named Hunter Steele discovers the Inner World populated by people who ride 10-foot tall battle spiders to defend their land from the evil Invectids. Hunter soon learns that the only way out is to overcome his fear of spiders and train as a Spider Rider, with the ultimate goal of becoming the Arachna-Master. The show premiered earlier this year on TELETOON in Canada and TV Tokyo in Japan.

    As master toy licensee, Mattel will manufacture and market a full line of Spider Riders products, including action figures and accessories, role-play items, vehicles, activity sets and more. In addition to DVD releases, FUNimation will distribute episodes for personal media players, bringing the property to kids everywhere as the series continues to expand its broadcast reach.

  • Dragon’s Lair Gets HD Makeover

    The classic laser disc-based arcade game Dragon’s Lair will be back and looking better than ever this fall when Digital Leisure releases a high-definition PC DVD ROM version of the title, which features hand-drawn animation by Don Bluth. In addition to pulling the film master from the vaults at Technicolor and giving it an HD shine job, Digital Leisure has cleaned up the original audio and added a completely new, five-channel surround sound audio mix.

    ‘Dragon’s Lair HD is an achievement no classic gamer will want to be without,’ boasts Digital Leisure president Elizabeth Foster. ‘With the power of today’s computers, gamers can now enjoy Dragon’s Lair the way it was meant to be seen. The quality of the animation is absolutely stunning and the surround sound mix will have you looking over your shoulder!’

    As with the original 1982 version, Dragon’s Lair HD will have players controlling the actions of Dirk the Daring, a valiant knight on a quest to rescue the fair princess Daphne from the clutches of an evil dragon and other treacherous monsters and obstacles that await in a medieval castle enchanted by a dark wizard.

    Digital Leisure specializes in acquiring and re-mastering existing video-intensive titles. The company plans to follow-up Dragon’s Lair HD with HD releases of Bluth’s Space Ace and Dragon’s Lair II: Time Warp. Dragon’s Lair HD will be available this fall at game retailers and at www.digitalleisure.com.

  • LAIKA to Build Animation Campus

    Up-and-coming feature animation studio LAIKA Inc. plans to build a state-of-the-art campus on 30 acres of land purchased by company owner Philip H. Knight in Tualatin, Oregon. Located 12 miles south of Portland, the new facility will open in 2008 to house the company’s entertainment division and a large staff of animators to work on its aggressive production slate. The staff is expected to jump to more than 400 employees over the next two years.

    Groundbreaking is set for early 2007, kicking off the first phase of construction which will include buildings dedicated to CG animation, stop motion animation, executive offices, conference rooms, a fitness center, a cafeteria and a theater.

    “LAIKA Ent. has a world-class roster of talent and projects and I felt it was time to provide them with a full-time home,” says Knight. “Just as we anticipate our films will look like no others before them, so too will this campus make a bold and distinct architectural statement.”

    A spokesperson for the Oregon Film & Video Office says the feature film studio will provide a big boost for the local creative community and the overall economic growth of the region.

    Formerly known as Vinton Studios, LAIKA was peripherally involved in the production of he Oscar-nominated stop-motion feature Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, and has two animated features of its own in production. Based on the international bestselling children’s novel by Neil Gaiman, the stop-motion fantasy pic Coraline is being brought to the screen with director Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach) at the helm and child star Dakota Fanning in the title voice role. Animator and writer Jorgen Klubien is directing Jack & Ben’s Animated Adventure, which is described as a heartwarming story of brotherly love set in the animal kingdom. LAIKA has also acquired film rights to U.K. writer/illustrator Alan Snow’s bestselling series of children’s novels, Here Be Monsters.

  • News Corp All-In for Simpsons Movie

    Slated for theatrical release on July 27, 2007, the highly anticipated Simpsons feature film will reportedly get a huge promotional push across all divisions of Fox Broadcasting’s parent company, News Corp. A story in today’s Hollywood Reporter mentions that News Corp is hoping to take in several hundred million dollars in incremental revenue from the movie over the next couple of years.

    News Corp president and chief operating officer Peter Chernin spoke at the Deutsche Bank Media & Telecommunications Conference in Santa Monica, informing investors that Simpsons exec producer James L. Brooks met with a virtual army of News Corp exec to discuss worldwide strategies for licensing and marketing the film across a number of platforms including home video, publishing and network and satellite TV.

    Chernin hopes that the promotional blitz for the Simpsons movie will in turn benefit all News Corp entities involved, and pushed the importance of synergy by pointing out the recent worldwide box office success of 20th Century Fox’s animated feature Ice Age: The Meltdown and the effects-laden X-Men: The Last Stand. With The Simpsons feature, he plans release details and promotions three waves that will hit in November, February and May.

  • BroadcastAsia Adds Animation, VFX Focus

    Attendees of this year’s edition of BroadcastAsia in Singapore can take part in the first Animation and Visual Effects Seminar at the Singapore Expo. The event will showcase many of the latest projects from the worlds leading production companies and education providers, covering the creative, technical and business development aspects of producing content for the global marketplace.

    Speakers lined up for the seminar include Rhythm and Hues animation and visual effects supervisor Bill Westenhofer, whose credits include The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. WETA Digital’s Shawn Dunn, who served as animation technical supervisor on King Kong, will also be on hand to provide an insight into how the Kong character was brought to life using motion capture and keyframe animation, and how Weta created Kong’s Skull Island and a photoreal 1933 New York City.

    The Animation and Visual Effects Seminar will be held on Wednesday, June 21, at the Singapore Expo and is intended for all digital artists, producers and management involved in the entertainment industry. Program details can be found at www.broadcast-asia.com/dme/dme_Animation&VisualEffects.html.

  • Lomas to Head CG at Framestore CFC

    As visual effects outfit Framestore CFC prepares to make its move into feature animation production, former head of 3D animation Andy Lomas has returned to the company in the newly expanded position of head of CG. Lomas will oversee the application of digital imagery across all of the studio’s operations, including commercials, longform television and feature films.

    For the past six years, Lomas has been working on various U.S. production including Matrix: Revolutions. Most recently, he served as head of character effects for DreamWorks Animation’s Over The Hedge, which opens in the U.K. later this month.

    “During my career I’ve worked in CGI on television commercials, TV projects, film VFX and animated features,’ Lomas comments. ‘Coming back to Framestore CFC now makes total sense, offering as it does a unique opportunity to bring all that experience together.’

    Lomas has been working with computer animation since the early 90s, joining Framestore CFC as a senior animator in 1994. During his tenure, he supervised the CG work on the Emmy Award-winning Hallmark television movies The Odyssey and Alice in Wonderland, as well as the Emmy-nominated television remake of Jason and the Argonauts. He also acted as a troubleshooter, solving CG production problems and leading research and development on Discovery Channel’s Walking With Dinosaurs and the ABC miniseries Dinotopia.

  • ILM Selling Physical Unit

    With the model spacecrafts, miniature sets and hand-painted mattes seen throughout the original Star Wars trilogy replaced by computer-generated imagery for the new films, it was just a matter of time before Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) did away with its practical unit all together. Daily Variety today reports that the company is in talks to sell off its physical effects operation, which was left behind when Lucasfilm moved to its new headquarters at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in San Francisco’s Presidio.

    The division of ILM that deals with models, miniatures and stage work has received a bid by veteran ILM model maker Mark Anderson, who will reportedly rename it Kerner Optical, a reference to ILM’s original headquarters on Kerner Avenue in San Rafael, Calif. The studio would then become a preferred subcontractor for ILM, creating practical elements to augment ILM’s strictly digital pipeline.

    The sale, which is expected to close within 60 days, will end an important part of ILM’s legacy as a groundbreaking visual effects studio. In the mid ’70s, the company devised a motion-control camera system that allowed miniature models to be composited with background footage for Star Wars, resulting in the spectacular space dogfights that changed the face of the science-fiction film and earned the company multiple Oscars for visual effects.

    Once regarded as the top VFX studio in the world, ILM has been overshadowed in recent years by Peter Jackson’s New Zealand-based Weta, whose combination of digital effects and model work has garnered Academy Awards for the Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong.

  • Ice Age, X-Men Propell Fox to $1 Billion

    The stellar box-office performance of the animated sequel Ice Age: The Meltdown and the superhero actioner X-Men: The Last Stand is largely responsible for making 20th Century Fox International the first studio to reach the $1 billion at the international box office for the second consecutive year. In 2005, the studio hit the high water mark with a major push from Star Wars: Episode III’Revenge of the Sith.

    According to The Hollywood Reporter, Blue Sky Studios’ latest Ice Age adventure provided Fox with its biggest windfall so far, contributing approximately $441 million to the studio’s coffers. The film earned $192 million domestically and setting opening weekend records in 13 territories, including Austria, Switzerland, Mexico and Argentina.

    Another $140 million was kicked up overseas by the third installment in popular film franchise based on Marvel Comics’ X-Men series. The film managed to dethrone The Da Vinci Code, which earned $450 million overseas and helped put Sony Pictures just behind Fox with around $811.5 million from foreign markets. Fox should continues to do well this year as Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties makes its way to cinemas this summer and Eragon leaps from the page to the screen over the winter holiday period.

  • Lionsgate to Live Happily N’ever After

    Mini-major Hollywood studio Lionsgate has acquired U.S. and Canadian distribution rights to the upcoming CG-animated fairly tale spoof Happily N’ever After. The film will be released theatrically as Lionsgate sets out to create some competition for The Weinstein Co., which has been aggressively acquiring toon features since releasing Hoodwinked, the most successful independently produced, computer-animated pic to date.

    Like Hoodwinked, Happily N’ever After takes a satirical look at a classic tale, this time poking fun at Cinderella. The film is set in Fairy Tale Land, where the age-old balance between good and evil has been thrown out of whack. When Cinderella’s power-mad stepmother rallies an unholy alliance of bad guys, it’s up to our blonde heroine to shed her damsel-in-distress trappings to lead the resistance. The voice cast is led by Sarah Michelle Gellar, Sigourney Weaver, Freddie Prinze Jr., George Carlin, Wallace Shawn and Andy Dick.

    Happily N’ever After is directed by Paul J. Bolger and written by Robert Moreland. Vanguard Films’ oscar-winning Shrek, Valiant producer John H. Williams produced the film with BAF Berlin Animation Film and BFC Berliner Film Companie. Co-exec producers are Ralph Kamp and Louise Goodsill of Odyssey Ent., and Rainer Soehnlein, CEO of BFC Berliner Film Companie.

    With last year’s launch of its Family Entertainment Enterprises, Lionsgate has been building a slate of animated features that includes Threshold Animation Studio’s Foodfight and Sylvester, based on the popular children’s book Sylvester and the Magic Pebblefrom late Shrek author William Steig. Sylvester is being produced by RichCrest Animation, which has a three-picture deal in place with Lionsgate.

    Lionsgate is also developing two animated series for different TV networks. Animated home video releases coming from the company include Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus 3-D, Care Bears Big Wish Movie,Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Friends, Inspector Gadget’s Biggest Caper Ever and Pinocchio 3000.

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  • AOL Flies with Superman Channel

    As Warner Bros. gets set to release Superman Returns in theatres on June 28, the studio has teamed with internet service provider AOL to launch a special Superman Channel on In2TV (http://www.aol.com/in2tv). A popular web destination for full-length TV episodes offered free of charge, In2TV is featuring installments of various animated and live-action Superman series through the end of July 2006.

    For animation fans, the Superman Channel on In2TV will present Max Fleischer’s early cartoons chronicling the heroic deeds of the Man of Steel. Produced between 1941 and 1942, the shorts originally appeared in movie theaters before making their way to television.

    The live-action shows featured include 1950s favorite The Adventures of Superman starring George Reeves; Superboy, a pre-Smallville young Superman series that aired in the late ’80s and early ’90s; and Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, the 1993-1997 romantic hit that starred Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain.

    In2TV will also host the online debut of the new A&E documentary Look, Up In the Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman. Directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Kevin Burns and produced by Burns and Superman Returns helmer Bryan Singer, the program is narrated by new Lex Luthor actor Kevin Spacey and features behind-the-scenes clips interviews with such Superman fans Jerry Seinfeld, Gene Simmons, Mark Hamill and comic book legend Stan Lee. The doc will be available on DVD on June 20.

  • [adult swim] Album in the Chocolate Mix

    Cartoon Network’s home for late-night animation, [adult swim], has teamed with independent hip-hop music label Chocolate Industries to produce Chocolate Swim, a six-song collection of mp3s that will be available for free on June 26 at adultswim.com. Presented by Mountain Dew, the mini-album will feature tracks from Mos Def and Diverse, Lady Sovereign and DOOM.

    Following on the heels of [adult swim]’s free DANGERDOOM Occult Hymn EP, Chocolate Swim is the first collaboration between the network and Chicago-based Chocolate Industries. All six songs will be originals or new remixes, including the Kut Masta Kurt remix of Mos Def and Diverse’s ‘Wylin Out.’

    ‘We’ve been huge fans of Chocolate Industries and their artists for quite a while,’ states Jason DeMarco, exec producer of the album DANGERDOOM: The Mouse and the Mask and head of music for Adult Swim. ‘We thought they would be a great label to work with on a radical idea like this: free music for the people, [adult swim]-style and no strings attached.’

    The [adult swim] lineup includes such syndicated animated favorites as Fox’s Family Guy, American Dad and Futurama, as well as original comedy series including The Boondocks, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The block also offers anime hits such Fullmetal Alchemist, Samurai Champloo and InuYasha. The 2006-2007 season will offer up a new slate of edgy toons, including Death Clock Metalocalypse, Frisky Dingo, Assy McGee, Saul of the Mole Men and Lucy, The Daughter of the Devil, as well as two animated pilots’Korgoth of Barbaria and That Crook’d ‘Sip.

  • Charlie, Beavis, Panther on DVD

    The legacy of Charles M. Schulz lives on in a new animated Peanuts miniseries arriving on home video today. The good, clean, educational fun of This is America, Charlie Brown is counterbalanced by the sophomoric, often moronic humor of Beavis and Butt-Head in another set of episodes hand-picked by series creator Mike Judge. Also hitting shelves today is The Pink Panther Classic Cartoon Collection, Vol. 4’Swingin’ Pink.

    This is America, Charlie Brown aired in eight installments on CBS. The program has the Peanuts gang visiting important events in U.S. history, including the voyage of the Mayflower, the birth of the Constitution, the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, the Wright Brothers flight at Kitty Hawk and the NASA Space Station project. The series also looks at the great American inventors, the Smithsonian and the Presidency and the music and heroes of America. This two-disc set offers 194 minutes of entetainment and carries a suggested retail price of $19.99.

    Fans of Beavis and Butt-Head can enjoy plenty of lewd jokes and witty asides from the sophomoric couch potatoes in the new Paramount DVD release Beavis and Butt-Head’Mike Judge Collection Vol. 2. Personally edited by Judge, this cool box set includes some of the duo’s finest MTV episodes and music videos by Beastie Boys, Pantera, Fate, Madonna, Pizzicato 5 and Radiohead among others. Other oddities and extras include Taint of Greatness: The Journey of Beavis & Butt-Head, Part 2; Butt-Bowl ’94,’95 and ’96; the MTV 20th Anniversary Special; Calvin Klein ad parodies; Moron-a-thon clips; an unaired I Love the 90’s segment and miscellaneous promos and montages. This 226-minutes-long collector’s item can be yours for $39.99.

    The famous feline cartoon creation of Friz Freleng and David DePatie recently enjoyed a big, 124-episode DVD launch with the Pink Panther Classic Cartoon DVD Collection. For those scared off by the $69.96 price tag, that five-disc release has been broken up into several individually wrapped slices, the latest of which is The Pink Panther Classic Cartoon Collection, Vol. 4’Swingin’ Pink. The MGM release is available for the list price of $14.94

  • DIC Names New President/COO

    Jeffrey Edell has been appointed president and chief operating officer for DIC Ent., replacing Brad Brooks, who has decided to return to investment banking. Reproting to DIC chairman and CEO Andy Heyward, Edell will manage the company’s operating units worldwide, including consumer products, television and home entertainment. Brooks will remain affiliated with the company as a consultant to DIC’s senior management in finance and strategy assessment.

    Edell joins DIC from direct response marketing and branding company MFC Development Corp., where he served as tpresident and CEO. Before that, he was chairman of Intermix Media Inc., which owns and operates a numberof online businesses including top social destination MySpace. Edell’s career also includes a stint as president and CEO of Soundelux Entertainment Group, an independent provider of entertainment content and technology serving the film, television and music industries. During Mr. Edell’s tenure at Soundelux, the creative staff garnered five Academy Awards and over 50 Emmy Awards among its numerous accomplishments.

    DIC Ent.’s vast library of toon programming features Strawberry Shortcake, Trollz, Classic Trolls, Inspector Gadget, Sabrina, Madeline, Liberty’s Kids, Where On Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?, Sonic The Hedgehog, Super Mario Bros, and Care Bears. This fall, the company will launch CBS’s Saturday Morning Secret Slumber Party, a new programming block on the CBS network in the U.S. that will introduce new programs created by DIC.

  • Cartoon Network In Mattel’s Toy Box

    Cartoon Network has granted Mattel Inc. its master toy licenser in a long-term, global deal covering original Cartoon Network properties for kids 6-11. Mattel also has a first-look option on all newly created original series and programming.

    Working with Cartoon Network Enterprises, the boradcaster’s worldwide consumer products division, Mattel will produce vehicles, action figures, playsets, role-play items, board games, puzzles youth electronics and other products based on such series as Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends, The Powerpuff Girls, Camp Lazlo, Ed, Edd n Eddy, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, the newly launched My Gym Partner’s a Monkey and The Life & Times of Juniper Lee. Existing relationships for other original series will remain unaffected by the deal.

    The Foster’s Home product lines will be the first to roll out at retail in 2007. Toys based on Ed, Edd n Eddy, Camp Lazlo and The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy will also shortly after. Cartoon Network Enterprises also offers consumer product programs for such animated franchises as Ben 10, Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, and the [adult swim] lineup.

  • Cars Speeds to Top

    It was a good weekend for the Disney/Pixar machine as Cars ran laps around the competition, taking the top pole position with an estimated $62.8 million. The prize money matched that of 2001’s Monsters, Inc., but ran short of the opening grosses for Pixar’s last two films, Finding Nemo ($70.2 million) and The Incredibles ($70.4 million). The difference can be attributed to DreamWorks Animation’s Over the Hedge, which picked up another $10.3 million (est.) for a fith-place finish and a five-week domestic cumulative draw of around $130 million.

    Cars is directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker John Lasseter (Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug’s Life), who is now chief creative officer of the combined Disney and Pixar animation outfits, as well as principal creative advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering. Like most other animated releases, the film should have long legs, especially as kids get out of school for the summer. International business should also rev up when the pic is released wider in Europe following the World Cup soccer finals.

    Universal’s comedy, The Breakup, continues to do well at No. 2 with an estimated $24 million for the weekend and a $74 million two-week take. But the movie to catch this summer is 20th Century Fox’s X-Men: The Last Stand. The effects-laden Marvel comic-book adaptation finished at No. 3 with an estimated $15.5 million, driving its three-week total past the $200 million mark. The studio’s remake of The Omen pulled in close behind at fourth place with around $15.4 million.

    One of the weekend’s biggest success stories is Robert Altman A Prairie Home Companion. The fictional behind-the-scenes look at humorist Garrison Keilor’s public radio variety show managed to earn north of $4.6 million from only 760 theaters across North America, and is expected to open wider aver the next few weeks.

  • French & Saunders Join Coraline

    Famed British comedy duo of Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders have joined the voice cast of LAIKA Ent.’s upcoming stop-motion feature Coraline. The two will play eccentric neighbors to Dakota Fanning’s Coraline and her mother, voiced by Teri Hatcher, in the adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s best-selling novel.

    Directed by Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach) and Mike Cachuela (LAIKA’s director of story), Coraline centers on a young girl who moves with her parents into a new home and discovers a portal to a parallel reality. French will voice the role of Miss Forcible and Suanders will be Miss Spink, rival former actresses who live in a basement flat and dabble in the occult. According to Selick, the actors were hand-picked by Gaiman to play his morbidly funny comic relief characters.

    Original members of the U.K. comedy troupe The Comic Strip, French and Saunders created, wrote, and co-starred in the hit series Girls on Top and French & Saunders. The latter spun off the hugely successful series Absolutely Fabulous, which Saunders created and starred in.

    LAIKA is producing Coraline in association with Pandemonium Films. Pandemonium president/CEO Bill Mechanic and LAIKA’s Mary Sandell are handling producing duties for the feature, which is being created at LAIKA’s Portland animation studio. Focus Features has worldwide distribution rights, and will also distribute the Tim Burton-produced feature version of Shane Acker’s Oscar-winning animated short, 9.

    Currently in pre-production at LAIKA is Jack & Ben’s Animated Adventure, a CG-animated story of survival, brotherly love and grand adventure set in the animal kingdom. That film is written and directed by Jorgen Klubien, a veteran storyboard artist and designer whose credits include The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Lion King, Toy Story 2, A Bug’s Life and Monsters, Inc. The company recently purchased the rights to U.K writer/illustrator Alan Snow’s best-selling children’s novel, Here Be Monsters.

  • Possum Golden at Student Academy Awards

    Filmmaker Chris Choy from California Institute of the Arts took gold at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 33rd annual Student Academy Awards competition on Saturday at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Choy’s Possum was deemed the top animated film, making him $5,000 richer and guaranteeing him a spot in the animated short competition at next year’s Oscars.

    The silver award in the animation category went to The Dancing Thief by Meng Vue from Ringling School of Art and Design, Sarasota, Fla. Vue receives $3,000, while the $2,000 bronze award goes to Thomas Leavitt from Brigham Young University, who placed third with his film, Turtles.

    Before having their films screened and voted on by Academy members, the wining students first had to compete in one of three regional competitions. Each of those regions was permitted to submit to the Academy up to three finalist films in each of the four categories.

    The Student Academy Awards were presented by actress/writer Nia Vardalos (My Big, Fat Greek Wedding), filmmaker Kevin Smith (Clerks) and Academy President Sid Ganis. A complete list of this year’s winners can be found at www.oscars.org.