Author: Ryan Ball

Lucasfilm Ltd. today officially opened the doors of its digital animation studio in Singapore, a 40,000-square foot facility that will focus on creating animated feature films and television series. Based in the Changi area of the small island nation, the studio has hired more than 35 employees from 19 countries and plans to continue recruiting into 2006.

“When we announced the formation of Lucasfilm Animation Singapore last August, we said we’d open our doors this fall, and we’re right on schedule,” says Lucasfilm founder George Lucas. “Our first series’a TV adventure titled Clone Wars, based on the time between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith– is already in active development and we hope to see it on the air in 2007.”

Phillip Stamp will serve as director of animation and Teo Chor Guan has been brought on as software engineer manager for Lucasfilm Animation Singapore. Under the leadership of general manager Christian Kubsch, the new studio will work closely with the team at Lucasfilm Animation, based at Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, Calif. The company also made announcements regarding the hiring of key creative execs for its U.S. operations.

Coming on as exec producer at Lucasfilm Animation in the U.S. is Catherine Winder, who has worked as both an exec and producer in feature films, home video and television animation in both the U.S. and Asia. She will head up development and production on the upcoming 3D-animated television series as well as on feature film projects. Prior to joining the company, Winder served as senior VP of Fox Feature Animation, where she supervised the expansion of Blue Sky studios and the production of the Oscar-nominated Ice Age. Her producing career started at Colossal Pictures, where she quickly moved to HBO and set up a studio to develop and produce the Emmy Award-winning animated series Todd MacFarlane’s Spawn. She began her animation career at Walt Disney Television Animation, Japan, and went on to work at Turner Films/Hanna Barbera in Taiwan. Winder co-authored the industry handbook Producing Animation.

Dave Filoni, who most recently directed the Nickelodeon animation series Avatar: The Last Airbender, has been hired on as supervising director. He began his animation career at toon house Film Roman as an assistant director for King of the Hill. He also served as an assistant director on the WB cartoon series Mission Hill and The Oblongs. Other credits include the Walt Disney Television Animation productions Kim Possible, Teamo Supremo and Lilo and Stitch.

After writing Star Wars comic-book stories for Dark Horse and authoring graphic novel adaptations of Star Wars: Episode I–The Phantom Menace and Star Wars: Episode II–Attack of the Clones, Henry Gilroy joins the Lucasfilm family as head writer/story editor. A veteran television animation story editor and producer with two Emmy nominations, Gilroy has contributed to such shows as The Tick, Jackie Chan Adventures, Lilo & Stitch and Justice League Unlimited. He also wrote for the award-winning, direct-to-video Bionicle film trilogy for Miramax.

Industrial Light & Magic animation director Rob Coleman has been named animation and development director for Lucasfilm Animation. He joins the toon division after twelve years at Lucas’ visual effects house, where he served as animation director on all three of the Star Wars prequels. Coleman has been nominated for two Oscars for his work on Attack of the Clones and The Phantom Menace, and two British Academy Awards (BAFTAs) for his work on Men in Black and The Phantom Menace.

An opening ceremony for the Singapore studio included a traditional Lion Dance, a blessing by a feng shui master and the unveiling of a statue of Yoda that will greet visitors to the studio. Official remarks were made by Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan, second minister for trade and industry, and Teo Ming Kian, chairman of the economic development board (EDB) of Singapore. They were joined by Micheline Chau, president and COO of Lucasfilm Ltd. and Gail Currey, VP and general manager of Lucasfilm Animation.

Main Photo: Christian Kubsch, general manager of Lucasfilm Animation Company Singapore, and Micheline Chau, right, president and Chief Operating Officer of Lucasfilm Ltd., stand next to a statue of Yoda

Director Peter Jackson’s remake of a certain classic 1933 giant ape flick may be destined to be a blockbuster, but it’s also going to be a bladder buster. According to Daily Variety, Universal has given into Jackson’s demands to release his three-hour cut of King Kong on Dec. 14.

Originally budgeted at around $175 million, Kong was projected to run approximately two and a half hours long. Necessitating more visual effects work by Weta, the additional half hour is expected to drive the film’s production costs north of $200 million. Jackson and producing partner Fran Walsh will reportedly cover most of the $32 million overage themselves.

After the Lord of the Rings trilogy, moviegoers have come to expect long movies from Jackson, whose Return of the King kept audiences holding their bladders for nearly three and a half hours. The studio released even longer cuts as special, extended edition DVDs. But monkeying with Kong’s run time may prove foolhardy, since Merian C. Cooper’s and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s original masterpiece is considered by many to be a textbook example of action/adventure movie pacing. That version, featuring stop-motion animation effects by Willis O’Brien, clocked in at a brisk 100 minutes.

Hoodwinked, a feature-length, CG-animated fairytale spoof, will be released theatrically on Christmas Day by The Weinstein Company (TWC). The media enterprise launched this month by Miramax founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein also announced that it has completed a $490 million private placement of equity.

Written and directed by Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards and Tony Leech, Hoodwinked! offers a fractured fairytale treatment of the classic Brothers Grimm fable of Little Red Riding Hood. The pic centers on a band of animated creatures investigating a domestic disturbance at Grandma’s famous cottage. The animated players, which include a karate-kicking Red, a smart-aleck wolf, a goofy Woodsman and a thrill-seeking Granny, will be voiced by the likes of Glenn Close, Jim Belushi, Anne Hathaway, Anthony Anderson and hip-hop artist Xzibit.

The toon feature was produced by Kanbar Ent., which was launched in 2002 by Maurice Kanbar, the man behind the SKYY Vodka, and former Disney Animation exec Sue Bea Montgomery. Kanbar and Montgomery are credited as producers, along with David K. Lovegren and Preston Stutzman. Kanbar brought a short version of Hoodwinked! to the Cannes market two years ago.

TWC’s first theatrical release, Derailed starring Jennifer Aniston and Clive Owen, will open in theaters nationwide on November 11. Other features slated for release through the company include Robert Rodriguez’s and Frank Miller’s Sin City 2 and the fourth movie in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series. The New York City-based entity will handle its own marketing and distribution of theatrical releases in the United States, and will also continue to own and operate the Dimension Films genre label.

Despite the Weinsteins’ less-than-amicable split from Disney, Hoodwinked! won’t exactly be competing with the Mouse House’s latest CG-animated feature, Chicken Little, arriving in theaters on Nov. 4. This first animated release from TWC will most likely roll out in limited release in select cities in order to qualify for Oscar consideration before showing up on home video.

Now in its second season on SCI FI Channel, the racy, CG-animated series Tripping The Rift tops this week’s list of toon home video releases. All 13 episodes from the show’s first season are now available in a three-disc set complete with bonus features that include character and artwork galleries, and the complete episode teleplays on DVD-ROM.

Tripping the Rift features the voices of Stephen Root (Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Office Space), Gina Gershon (Face/Off, Showgirls), John Melendez (The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Howard Stern Show) and Maurice LaMarche (Pinky and the Brain). Spoofing such sci-fi classics as Star Trek, Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey, the series follows the intergalactic adventures of the crew of the starship Jupiter 42, a smuggling vessel captained by a stumpy purple alien named Chode (Root). Melendez provides the voice of the ship’s computer; LaMarche voices Gus, Chode’s sexually confused and verbally abused robot slave; and Gershon is Six, Chode’s sexy cyborg, a role taken over by Carmen Electra for the second season.

Produced by CineGroup in association with IDT Ent., the series started as an award-winning short film by creators Chris Moeller and Chuck Austen. The short aired during SCI FI’s erstwhile shorts series, Exposure, before getting a series order from the network. The show has gone on to win awards as well, taking Best Program of the Year and Best TV Series for Teens and Adults at the 2004 Cartoons on the Bay. Danièle Joubert is producer and Jacques Pettigrew, Michael Lemire, Peter Schankowitz and John Hyde serve as exec producers.

Released by Anchor Bay, Tripping the Rift: The Complete First Season carries a suggested retail price of $29.98.

Platinum Studios and Gale Anne Hurd’s Valhalla Motion Pictures have teamed up to produce a feature film based on the Top Cow comic-book property Magdalena. Uber producer Hurd (Aeon Flux, The Terminator) and Platinum Studios chairman Scott Mitchell Rosenberg will serve as producers on the religious-themed film, which is being penned by Kevin Taft.

The Magdalena comics have been translated into 26 languages in 55 countries. The movie will center on a young woman named Patience, who discovers that she is part of a lineage of female warriors descended from Mary Magdalene, an important figure in the life of Jesus Christ. Patience must accept her destiny in time to save the world from a supernatural evil in this present-day action-adventure yarn, which draws on elements of biblical history much like Dan Brown’s hugely successful novel, The Da Vinci Code.

Platinum Studios signed a pact in 2004 to develop Top Cow’s comic library for film, television, and other media. Platinum and Top Cow properties currently set up at major studios include Cowboys and Aliens at Sony, Unique at Disney, Mal Chance at Miramax, The Darkness at Dimension, Wanted at Universal, Inferno at Warner Bros., Rising Stars at MGM and Fathom at Fox.

Comic creator and Top Cow Prods. CEO Marc Silvestri (Witchblade, Darkness) will serve as exec producer on Magdalena. The film’s development will be overseen for Rosenberg and Hurd, along with Valhalla’s exec VP Gary Ventimiglia and VP of production and development Steve Emery, and Platinum Studios’ director of development Aaron Severson and director of production Jay Burns. Top Cow Productions’ president Matt Hawkins will co-produce.

Rosenberg, who was instrumental in bringing the Men In Black comic franchise to the big screen, is currently working with Hurd to develop Atlantis Rising as a film franchise. Magdalena scribe Taft was recently signed to pen New Line Cinema’s Alone.