Animation Magazine

Author: Ryan Ball

  • Dick Tracy Back on TV Beat?

    Former Warner Bros. president Lorenzo di Bonaventura has joined forces with Bobby Newmyer and Scott Strauss of Outlaw Prods. to bring classic comic-book gumshoe Dick Tracy back to television with a modern, live-action interpretation. Rights to the property have been secured from Tribune Media Services, a division of Tribune Co., and a writer should be attached sometime during the next month. The producers hope to pitch the series to networks this summer.

    Dick Tracy was created by Chester Gould in 1937. The popular comics were first adapted for a live-action series that aired on ABC from 1950-1952, followed by the UPA animated series (The Dick Tracy Show) from 1961-1964. In 1990, Disney released Dick Tracy on the big-screen, but failed to establish a tentpole despite the star power of Warren Beatty, Madonna and Al Pacino.

    Outlaw’s recent credits include, Warner Bros.’ Training Day, Dimension’s Mindhunters and the now-shooting Phat Girlz. The production company is prepping Hanssen for Universal, The Santa Clause III for Disney and The Lost Boys of Sudan for Paramount.

    At Warner Bros., di Bonaventura managed such franchises as The Matrix, Harry Potter, Scooby-Doo and Batman. His recent credits include Warner Bros.’ Constantine and Universal’s upcoming video-game adaptation, DOOM, and he is currently developing Transformers for DreamWorks and Paramount, and a G.I. Joe feature.

  • Team America, Mask Exposed on DVD

    Puppets get pornographic and humans turn into living cartoons in three of today’s big home video releases. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone evoke the spirit of Gerry Anderson’s "Supermarionation" to poke fun at world politics in Team America: World Police, while Jim Carey and Jamie Kennedy get their squash and stretch on in The Mask Platinum Series and Son of the Mask, respectively.

    Team America: World Police does for puppetry what South Park did for animation. The feature film takes cute, kid-show fare and infuses it with subversive humor, comical sexuality and biting social satire. A parody of Anderson’s Thunderbirds and other marionette action shows from 1960s, Team America takes jabs at everyone from North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il to left-wing Hollywood actors such as Alec Baldwin and Samuel L. Jackson.

    Bonus materials include making-of featurettes titled Building the World, Crafting the Puppets, Pulling the Strings, Capturing the Action, Miniature Pyrotechnics and Up Close with Kim Jong-Il. There’s also a dressing room test, a puppet test, deleted/extended scenes, outtakes, animated storyboards and two theatrical trailers. Paramount Home Entertainment is releasing both the rated theatrical cut and an unrated version, each retailing for $19.97 on DVD.

    The Mask Platinum Series is a re-issue of the 1994 hit that sees Jim Carrey take on cartoon qualities when he finds an ancient relic with supernatural powers. This edition offers the four new featurettes Introducing Cameron Diaz, What Makes Fido Run, Cartoon Logic and Return to Edge City. Also included are deleted scenes and audio commentaries with director Chuck Russell, New Line Cinema’s Bob Shaye and other members of the production staff. The New Line release lists for $19.97 on DVD.

    Jamie Kennedy (Malibu’s Most Wanted, TV’s The Jamie Kennedy Experiment) takes over for Carrey in the 2005 remake, Son of the Mask. Kennedy plays Tim Avery, an aspiring cartoonist whose life becomes a cartoon when his infant son falls under the spell of the magical mask of Loki, the Norse god of mischief as played by Alan Cumming (X2: X-Men United, Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams). The film combines live-action with both motion-captured and key-framed animation that pays homage to the spirit of legendary Warner Bros. animators Tex Avery and Chuck Jones. Vfx contributors include Tippett Studio, Industrial Light & Magic, TeamWorks Digital, Digital Dimension, Illusion Arts, Toybox, Kleiser-Walczak and Giant Killer Robots.

    The Son of the Mask DVD includes commentary by director Lawrence Guterman (Cats & Dogs) and writer Lance Khazei, deleted scenes, a storyboard and conceptual art gallery and the behind-the-scenes featurettes Chow Bella–Hollywood’s Pampered Pooches, Creating Son of the Mask: Digital Diapers and Dog Bytes and Paw Prints and Baby Steps: On the Set of Son of the Mask. The New Line release lists for $27.95.

    Also available on disc today is the Shrek 2/Madagascar Activity Disc Two-pack, which includes last year’s DVD edition of DreamWorks’ Shrek 2 and a second disk featuring activities that promote the studio’s May 27 release, Madagascar. Included are a behind-the-scenes featurette titled Meet the Madagascar Family, lessons on how to draw the characters, a trivia game, DVD ROM printables and trailers for Madagascar, Wallace & Grommit–The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Shark Tale. Available for $26.99 or less, the release also contains a free ticket to see Madagascar in theaters.

  • Bart, Ghost in the Shell Haunt Home Vid

    With Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith getting ready to explode on screens this Thursday, Fox Home Entertainment is capitalizing on the excitement with the release of The Simpsons: Bart Wars. The compilation of Simpsons installments is joined at retail by Volume 6 of the anime hit, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

    The Simpsons: Bart Wars features the episodes “Dog of Death,” “Marge Be Not Proud,” “The Secret War of Lisa Simpson” and “Mayored to the Mob” on one disc. Also included is the featurette The Making of Bart Wars: The Simpsons Strike Back. Despite the title, the only real Star Wars tie-in is a guest starring performance by Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy. Other celebrities lending their voices to the episodes include Willem Dafoe, Phil Hartman, Joe Mantegna, Lawrence Tierney and Marcia Wallace. Fans can pick it up for $14.98.

    Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Volume 6 offers fans three half-hour episodes of the animated series based on the ground-breaking anime feature from director Mamoru Oshii. In these installments, cyborg Major Motoko Kusanagi and her fellow Section 9 police officers continue to hunt down various criminals in both the real and online worlds. The Anchor Bay release is available as both a single-disc standard edition retailing for $24.98 and a two-disc special edition for $49.98. The special edition includes an exclusive T- shirt and a collector’s card.

  • PASI in Harmony with Toon Boom

    Philippine Animation Studio Inc. (PASI), has adopted Toon Boom Animation’s Harmony paperless animation software package for its upcoming productions, marking the first overseas installation of the new digital and traditional animation solution.

    PASI, which recently moved into a new facility in Manila, will integrate Harmony into its upgraded digital department. "The acquisition gives Pacific Digital, Inc. [PDI], PASI’s digital facility, flexibility on software choices with our current international partners and an opportunity to expand our clientele," says Lani Barcelona, PDI digital manager.

    Past co-production credits for PASI include the award-winning series Bob and Margaret with Nelvana and Kong, The Animated Series with BKN Kids and ELLIPSANIME. PASI is currently working on several series, including Captain Flamingo with Breakthrough Films, Atomic Cartoons and Heroic Films; Leapfrog with Porchlight Ent.; and Benjamin Bear with Amberwood Ent.

    For more information on Toon Boom and its products, go to www.toonboom.com.

  • Blizzard Acquires Swingin’ Ape Studios

    Blizzard Ent., the award-winning developer of such hit PC franchises as Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo, is taking aim at the console market with the acquisition of Swingin’ Ape Studios. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

    Swingin’ Ape’s crew of more than 40 developers will form the foundation for Blizzard’s new console team, which will continue to benefit from Swinging Ape’s proprietary development technologies. The team will remain in its Southern California office, located within a few miles of Blizzard’s Irvine headquarters. The first project for the new unit will be a console version of StarCraft: Ghost

    “We’ve long admired the quality and attention to detail that Blizzard puts into each of its PC titles," comments Steve Ranck, president and co-founder of Swingin’ Ape Studios. "Our approach to game design is very similar, so we expect this to be a seamless transition for us.”

    Ranck will serve as VP of console development reporting directly to Mike Morhaime, president/co-founder of Blizzard Ent, a division of Vivendi Universal Games.

  • E3 NEWS: BOXX, ShackNews to Offer HD E3 Footage Online

    Bummed out because you can’t get into this week’s industry-only Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles? Computer workstation supplier BOXX Technologies Inc. and ShackNews Ltd. have teamed up to give you a virtual pass in the form of high-definition footage of events and interviews to be available on the internet.

    "Fileshack is planning to deliver the excitement of E3 to millions of gamers and enthusiasts on the Internet who want the latest buzz from the show," says Steve Gibson president of Shacknews Ltd. "With BOXX’s high-performance systems powered by AMD’s Dual-Core Opteron 875 processors, we will have all the horsepower we need to edit and deliver true 720p high-definition footage to our audience."

    The footage will be presented in 720p (1280×720) WMVHD format and featured on www.Fileshack.com, www.Shacknews.com, and the Microsoft E3 and gaming websites as a "see this game in HD" link. Video will be distributed via the Fileshack network in partnership with Limelight Networks, the bandwidth provider for Valve’s Steam and Microsoft’s Xbox Live.

    For more information about BOXX workstations, go to www.boxxtech.com.

  • Henson Revisiting Dark Crystal

    The Jim Henson Co. has announced plans to produce a sequel to its 1982 cult fantasy feature, The Dark Crystal. Scribes Annette Duffy and David Odell, who wrote the original film, have penned a script for the follow-up, which is being developed under the working title The Power of the Dark Crystal. Odyssey Ent. is currently in Cannes representing worldwide sales and distribution for the film, which is part of an overall franchise re-launch that will also include and animated series.

    Directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz, with conceptual designer Brian Froud, The Dark Crystal blended sophisticated animatronics and puppetry to transport viewers to a strange world where a young adventurer must find the missing shard of a fabled crystal that can end the reign of the evil Skekses. While the film failed to make the kind of box office splash that the Star Wars saga and other fantasy films were making at the time, its wildly imaginative story and visuals have not gone unnoticed on home video where it continues to generate strong sales.

    Set many years after the events of the first movie, the sequel revisits heroes Jen and Kira, who are now King and Queen, as well as guardians of the Crystal. When the Crystal is again split, the two must fight to save their kingdom from dark forces.

    This time around, the Henson crew will employ a combination of animatronics and CG animation to bring the fantastical world and its bizarre characters to life. Lisa Henson and Kristine Belson will produce with Brian Henson, Ralph Kamp and Louise Goodsill serving as exec producers.

    Lisa Henson comments, "The Dark Crystal created its own world. We are now going to fully explore this universe through the sequel film, which will be followed up with an animated series as well as interactive games and other media."

    Brian Henson adds, "With The Jim Henson Co. celebrating its 50th anniversary, The Power of the Dark Crystal is a wonderful tribute to our legacy of fantasy projects. The original film set a new standard for the genre and broke new ground in visual effects. We hope to honor its devoted fans with an exciting new chapter in this great adventure."

    The Jim Henson Co. recently employed its creature shop on the box office hit, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Now in the works at the company are adaptations of the popular children’s books Five Children and It by E. Nesbit and MirrorMask by Neil Gaiman. In post-production is the preschool series Frances, while the television feature, The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz (Starring Ashanti, David Alan Grier, Queen Latifah, Jeffrey Tambor and Quentin Tarantino), airs this Friday, May 20, on ABC. More information on The Jim Henson Co. can be found at www.henson.com.

  • Dygra Offers Midsummer Peek at Cannes

    Shakespeare gets animated with Midsummer Dream, the latest CG animated feature from Dygra Films, the Spanish toon studio behind the European hit, The Living Forest. Daily Variety reports that today’s festivities at the Cannes Film Festival included a sneak peek at some scenes from the English-language version featuring the voices of popular British actors Brian Blessed, Bernard Hill, Rhys Ifans and Miranda Richardson.

    Released theatrically in 2001, The Living Forest sold roughly 1 million tickets in Europe, but failed to significantly crack the English-language market. Dygra and distributor Lumina Films hope casting well-known English actors will help Midsummer fare better on that front. The new pic has so far been pre-sold in 61 countries and has attracted more than a dozen merchandisers.

    The characters from The Living Forest will return in a sequel titled The Spirit of the Forest. Also in the pipeline at Dygra are features titled Holy Night! and The Golden Ass. The films are scheduled to hit theaters in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

    In addition to launching an aggressive production slate, Dygra will focus on restructuring both financially and physically, bringing its many, dispersed studios together in a new facility.

    Midsumer Dream is directed by Dygra president Manolo Gomez and Angel de la Cruz.

    Variety notes that 20 minutes of Michel Ocelot’s French toon feture, Kirikou and the Wild Beasts, is also scheduled to preview at Cannes.

  • Fox Home Entertainment Takes The Roach Approach

    First, it was animated vegetables putting a new twist on biblical tales, and now it seems the roaches are moving in on the action. Wacky World Studios, the design and animation studio behind the kids’ video series, The Roach Approach, has signed an exclusive, long-term U.S./Canada distribution agreement with 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

    The deal will include both general market and Christian retail distribution for The Roach Approach videos. Formerly handled by EMI CMG Distribution, the Christian distribution will be managed by Word Distribution through 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment’s relationship with Word’s parent company, Warner Bros.

    The Roach Approach: Don’t Miss the Boat!, the first video in the series, will be released to general retailers by Fox’s home entertainment label on August 23. The toon relates the story of Noah’s Ark through a character named Squiggz and his six-legged roach family. Also releasing that day is the follow-up, The Roach Approach: The Mane Event, which takes on the story of Daniel in the Lions’ Den.

    The Roach Approach is part of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment’s aggressive expansion into the Christian children’s category. The company has already enjoyed great success in the adult segment of the market with the home video release of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and other faith-based features such as their Hangman’s Curse, Love’s Enduring Promise and Woman Thou Art Loosed.

    For more information on The Roach Approach, go to www.wackyworld.tv.

  • Disney Gets Game Claws on Turok

    The Walt Disney Co.’s Buena Vista Games (BVG) announced today that it will take over Classic Media’s Turok franchise for its next-generation console launch. The move is part of Disney’s strategy to branch out from kid game titles and target older, hardcore gamers with action/adventure fare. The new Turok games will be developed for multiple console and handheld platforms by BVG’s new Vancouver studio, Propaganda Games.

    Turok started out as a series of comic books created by Matthew H. Murphy. First published in 1954, the comics endured for decades before being introduced for Nintendo 64 by Acclaim in 1997. Turok remained with Acclaim until last year when the struggling company lost the license due to late royalty payments.

    “With the launch of the new console and handheld game platforms, we feel it is the perfect time to redefine Turok video games,” comments Graham Hopper, senior VP and general manager for Buena Vista Games. “We expect Turok to lead our growth strategy of creating action-oriented game franchises for the core gamer market.”

    The Turok comic books follow the adventures of Turok and his young friend, Andar, who set out on a hunting expedition and stumble across a prehistoric valley filled with deadly predators. As a video game franchise, it has sold more than 5 million units to date.

  • 4Kids Launches Winx Club Card Game

    While boys have their Pokémon, Digimon and Yu Gi Oh!, there are few trading card games designed just for girls. In a bid to fill that gap in the marketplace, 4Kids Ent. has teamed with Upper Deck Ent. to create and distribute a new card game based on 4Kids’ popular animated series, Winx Club. The game will be available exclusively at Toys “R” Us stores nationwide on May 15, and will launch simultaneously throughout Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

    The Winx Club Magical Fairy Game expands the world of fashion-savvy teenagers Bloom, Stella, Musa, Flora and Tecna, who use their special powers to transform into magical fairies and save the universe. Utilizing glitter Magix cards and scented Power cards, players work together with friends to defeat the Witches in a secret midnight battle. The two-player starter set includes two 30-card decks, magical fairy rings, a play-mat, a scoring wheel with usable hair bands and a glitter die all encased in a Winx Club tin.

    “Girls play differently than boys, and it is in understanding these play patterns and appeal that led us to work with Upper Deck and create a trading card game that is more about friendship, fun, fashion and magic,” says Alfred R. Kahn, chairman and CEO of 4Kids Ent.

    Promotional efforts will include a contest that invites kids to design their own Winx Club trading cards for the chance to have their unique card featured in a future game release. The winner also will receive a Toys “R” Us gift card valued at $1,000, while other lucky winners will receive more than 100 prizes including Winx Club toys and games.

    The Magical Fairy Game will also be heavily promoted in the premiere issue of the Winx Club Comic Magazine, a 64-page monthly book that will include more than 40 pages of graphic novel content and roughly 10 pages of entertainment-related stories dealing with fashion, technology, music, friendship and fun.

    In addition to Upper Deck, 4kids’ licensing partners include Mattel, which holds the master toy license for Winx Club, and Scholastic, which publishes books based on the property.

    The Winx Club series airs Saturday mornings on 4Kids TV, a four-hour block of children’s programming on FOX. For additional information on the show, go to www.WinxClub.TV.

  • Discovery Explores Alien Planet

    After employing state-of-the-art computer animation to visit the past in the popular Walking with Dinosaurs series, The Discovery Channel is using the same techniques to imagine what life might be like on other planets. Alien Planet premieres on Saturday, May 14, at 8 p.m. (ET/PT).

    It’s the year 2014 and a trio of unmanned probes from Earth have arrived on the fictional planet of Darwin IV, some 6.5 light years from home. On this world with two suns and 60% of the gravity found on Earth, the probes search for microscopic signs of life but encounter a variety of bizarre life forms.

    Darwin’s inhabitants have been imagined by such leading scientists as Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku and Jack Horner, and fleshed out in CG by Meteor Studios. Other participants include George Lucas and NASA’s chief scientist, Jim Garvin. 

    The scientists featured in interviews consider data in this planetary environment and deconstruct the animals on Darwin IV, basing the analysis on the laws of evolution and physics. Where possible, life-size animal images and the real probe prototypes will help the audience to understand the real basis of the search for other planets. For more information, go to www.discovery.com/alienplanet.

  • Nosferatu Gets Toon Update

    While the majority of computer animation work is being dedicated to creating loveable animal characters, the medium seems to be lending itself to the horror genre lately as well. One CG chiller/comedy in the works is a feature adaptation of Philippe Druillet’s cult graphic novel, Nosferatu, published by Editions Albin Michel in France and Dark Horse Comics in the U.S. Alexandre Brillant of Wolfland Pictures and European animation veteran Christopher Panzner are co-producing the pic.

    Described as a personal interpretation of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent film masterpiece of the same name, the animated Nosferatu tells the story of an amnesic vampire who awakens the day after the Apocalypse only to discover that he is the only one who can save the planet. The surviving humans have created an idyllic underground society and have created an army of vicious robots to patrol the surface, searching out and destroying anything that doesn’t fit the new ideal. To take on these metal monsters, Nosferatu teams up with a cyborg-girl, smart-aleck human kid and a ragtag band of mummies, zombies, werewolves and other misfits.

    Budgeted at roughly $10 million, Nosferatu will be directed by Druillet, who created Heavy Metal magazine and the graphic novels Salammbô and The 6 Voyages of Lone Sloane. He also spearheaded the French CG series Xcalibur. Druillet shares co-writing duties on Nosferatu with Fabrice Ziolkowski (Brendan and the Secret of Kells, The Mysteries of Providence, The Bellflowers Billy the Cat, Jules Verne — Amazing Journeys).

    Despite its horror origins, Nosferatu will apparently be more PG, falling somewhere between Disney’s The Nightmare Before Christmas and Disney/Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. in tone. A teaser can be downloaded at http://werewolf71.club.fr/nosferatu/teaser/index.html.

    A former journalist for Premiere magazine, Brillant created Wolfland Pictures in 2001. The company co-produced with Carrere Group Arzak Rhapsody, the first animated series written, designed and directed by respected fantasy artist Jean Mœbius Giraud. Wolfland is developing Nyxies: Children of the Night, a CG series conceived and directed by Michael Brown, one of the creators of the video game Myst III: Exile.

    A frequent contributor to Animation Magazine, Panzner has been involved in a number of animated features, including Academy Award nominee The Triplets of Belleville and Belleville director Sylvain Chomet’s acclaimed short film, The Dog, the General and the Pigeons. Other credits include The Jester Till, Black Mor’s Island and Charlie and Mimmo.

  • Escape Releases endorphin in U.K.

    Escape Studios, the U.K.’s only accredited Maya training center and a Maya reseller, has been selected to distribute NaturalMotion’s endorphin. The groundbreaking 3D software package enables 3D characters to self-animate via artificial intelligence (AI), biomechanics and dynamics motion synthesis.

    Employed mainly for animatics and visual effects work, endorphin applies "Adaptive Behaviours," a unique system of parameters and settings that essentially give animated characters central nervous systems, allowing them to react with natural physics in a given situation. The package also offers the flexibility to integrate various types of animation data.

    "Incidents of genuine ‘breakthrough’ technology hitting the market seem to have lulled in recent years so it’s very encouraging to see this type of solution arrive," comments Mark Cass, Escape’s business development director.

    NaturalMotion sales and marketing director Richard Craig-McFeely adds, “NaturalMotion is pleased to partner with Escape Studios. Their experience of consulting with the U.K.’s top post houses and games studios will allow more productions to benefit from endorphin’s functionality."

    Escape’s professional clients include Aardman Animations, The BBC, Rare, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Rockstar Games and Nissan. The company will begin selling and training on endorphin in early June.

  • Namco Curious About George

    Namco Hometek will bring Universal’s upcoming animated feature, Curious George, to the game space. The publisher secured the rights from Universal Studios Consumer Products Group and plans to develop titles for consoles, handhelds and PCs in time for the movie’s Feb. 10, 2006 theatrical release.

    Originally published in 1941, the Curious George children’s book from authors H. A. Rey and Margret Rey has never been out of print. In 1998, Houghton-Mifflin began publishing new Curious George adventures and continues to release new titles. Books in the evergreen franchise have sold more than 27 million copies worldwide and have been published in 17 languages.

    To capture the style of the book’s iconic illustrations, the long-awaited feature will be animated in 2D. Will Ferrell (Elf, Old School) lends his voice to The Man With the Yellow Hat, leading a cast that includes Dick Van Dyke, Drew Barrymore, David Cross, Eugene Levy and Joan Plowright.

    A production of Universal Pictures and Imagine Ent., Curious George is directed by Matt O’Callaghan (Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas) and produced by Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Jon Shapiro and David Kirschner.

    In addition to the animated feature Universal Home Entertainment Prods., in association with Imagine Ent. and WGBH-TV Boston, is producing an animated Curious George preschool television series, with 30 half-hour episodes scheduled to air on PBS KIDS beginning in the fall of 2006.

    As a video game, the property will join such popular Namco Hometek franchises as Tekken, SOULCALIBUR, Dead to Rights, Pac-Man World, Ridge Racer, Time Crisis and ACECOMBAT. For more information on Namco and its products, go to www.namco.com.

  • Cox, Arquette Pilot Dirt Squirrel to MTV

    According to The Hollywood Reporter, MTV has picked up a live-action/animated pilot titled Dirt Squirrel from comedic actor David Arquette (the Scream trilogy, Eight Legged Freaks) and wife Courteney Cox (Friends). The duo inked the deal through their Coquette Prods. shingle.

    The pilot features both live-action and animated characters set against animated backgrounds, with a healthy dose of visual effects thrown in. Arquette dons prosthetic makeup to star as superhero Dirt Squirrel, who keeps neighborhood crime down with his peculiar martial arts skills and assistance from the League of Super Nuts. Villains will be played by Cox, Paul Reubens of Pee Wee Herman fame and Lucas Haas (Witness, Heavy Gear: The Animated Series).

    Arquette, who also wrote the script with Ben Joseph (The Cramp Twins), reportedly based the concept on a game he used to play with his father. This is Cox’s and Arquette’s first collaboration with MTV.

  • Nick Ready for Fatherhood Again

    Fatherhood, Nick at Nite’s first original animated series, is set to return with season two on Tuesday, May 17 at 9:30 p.m. Based on the best-selling book of the same name by Bill Cosby, the show will return with all-new installments featuring guest spots by Jim Belushi (According to Jim), Don Knotts (Pleasantville) and Malcolm Jamal-Warner (The Cosby Show).

    Blair Underwood (Full Frontal, Malibu’s Most Wanted, TV’s Sex and the City) returns as the voice of Br. Bindlebeep, a high school teacher struggling to raise three kids of his own with wife Norma, voiced by Sabrina LeBeauf (The Cosby Show). In the season opener, "Behind Closed Doors," Bindlebeep catches his daughter, Angie, hiding a boy in her room and assumes the worst, only to learn that things are not always what they seem.

    The first season of Fatherhood, which premiered in June of 2004, drew nearly 64 million viewers during its run, according to Nickelodeon. The series went on to win the Vision Award from The National Association of Minorities in Communications, tying for Best Comedy with Comedy Central’s Chapelle’s Show.

    Produced at Nickelodeon Studios in Burbank, Calif., Fatherhood is exec produced by Bill Cosby, Charles Kipps (Little Bill, Cosby Mysteries, Law & Order) and David Brokaw (Little Bill). Six new episodes are scheduled to premiere on Tuesdays in May and June at 9:30 p.m. on Nick at Nite.

  • Star Wars Fans to Play Cannes

    Past and present winners of the annual Star Wars Fan Film Awards will be screened during a special event at the Cannes Film Festival. A presentation of AtomFilms, in partnership with Lucasfilm Ltd. and Talantis Films, the program will screen on May 19, the same day Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith debuts in theaters worldwide.

    The Star Wars Fan Film Awards draw millions of visitors to popular online short film outlet AtomFilms. More than 100 finalists and winners from all four annual events are now available for free online viewing at www.starwars.atomfilms.com. Featured films include both animated and live-action spoofs and dramatic tales inspired by the blockbuster saga. Each year, George Lucas himself selects one entry to receive top honors.

    This year’s big winner is Barry Curtis’ For Love of the Film, in which moviegoers act out their own version of Star Wars when the projector breaks down. Other winning titles include John E. Hudgens’ Sith Apprentice (Audience Choice), Tetsuro Saiki’s Walk in a Bamboo Bush (Best Animation) and Anakin Dynamite (Best Crossover Spoof).

    Paris-based short film distributor Talantis Films is presenting the Cannes screening, which will feature 12 fan films, on May 19 at 11:30 am at the Short Film Corner. The lineup includes:

    Escape from Tatooine – George Lucas Selects Award, 2004. Directed by David Tomaszewski.

    Christmas Tauntauns – George Lucas Selects Award, 2002. Directed by Matt Bagshaw.

    Empire of one – Finalist, 2002. Directed by Tom E. Newby

    Pink Five – Audience Choice Award, 2003. Directed by Trey Stokes.

    Star Wars Gangsta Rap – Audience Choice Award, 2002. Created by Thomas Lee and Jason Brannan.

    One Season More – Best Original Song, 2005. Created by Tim Smith.

    Jar Jar’s Walking Papers – Best Animation, 2002. Directed by Joe Fournier.

    Speeder – Finalist, 2005. Directed by William Grammer.

    Crazy Watto – Finalist, 2002. Directed by John Hudgens.

    Silent But Deadly – Finalist, 2002. Directed by Jeff Cioletti and Lou Tambone.

    JabbaWookiee – Finalist, 2002. Directed by Monte Michaelis

    Womb Wars: The Special Edition – Finalist, 2002. Directed by Tom E. Newby

  • DreamWorks Unleashes Gromit at Cannes

    DreamWorks Animation SKG apparently pulled out all the stops in promoting its next animated feature at the Cannes Film Festival. The publicity stunt for the clay-animated Wallace & Gromit–The Curse of the Were-Rabbit involved 30-foot high inflatable Gromit balloon that towered over the Croissete on Thursday.

    Following the morning’s fanfare at the Carlton Beach Café, the party moved into the Palais, where DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg hosted a special tribute to Aardman. An official part of the festival, the tribute featured appearances by Wallace & Gromit creator and director Nick Park, and Aardman co-founders David Sproxton and Peter Lord.

    In addition to showing clips from Aardman’s Academy Award-winning Wallace and Gromit shorts and the DreamWorks/Aardman 2000 feature, Chicken Run, Katzenberg introduced a preview of Wallace & Gromit–The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and another upcoming DreamWorks/Aardman collaboration, Flushed Away. The latter will mark Aardman’s first foray into computer animated features.

    Wallace & Gromit–The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is the first feature-length comedy featuring cheese-loving British inventor Wallace and his faithful canine companion, Gromit. The film features the voices of Oscar nominees Helena Bonham-Carter and Ralph Fiennes in a story that has our heroes taking on a huge, mysterious beast in order to protect the town’s Giant Vegetable Competition. The comedy, directed by Nick Park and Steve Box (Stage Fright), opens nationwide on Oct. 7.

    Slated for release in November of 2006, Flushed Away will star Hugh Jackman as the voice of Roddy, a pampered rat who is flushed from his posh high-rise apartment and into Ratropolis, the bustling sewer world under London’s streets. Kate Winslet co-stars as Rita, an enterprising scavenger who helps Roddy find his way as he learns how the other half lives and becomes an unlikely hero. The film is being directed by Sam Fell and David Bowers, with Peter Lord, David Sproxton and Cecil Kramer producing.

  • Cleese to Script DreamWorks/Aardman Pic

    One of the announcements to come out of Thursday’s DreamWorks/Aardman presentation at the Cannes Film Festival is that Monty Python alum John Cleese has been tapped to write the next feature for the two animation powerhouses.

    Aardman co-founder Peter Lord thrilled the audience with news that Cleese is currently co-writing Crood Awakening, a pre-historic comedy that will be the fourth collaboration between DreamWorks and Aardman. Following their 2000 stop-motion hit, Chicken Run, the studios have been at work on the clay animated feature, Wallace and Gromit–The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Oct. 7, 2005) and the CG comedy Flushed Away (November 2006).

    Set in the Stone Age, Crood Awakening is a comedy about a big man whose position as Leader of the Hunt in the small village of Crood is threatened by the arrival of a prehistoric genius who comes up with revolutionary new inventions such as fire.

    According to BBC News, Lord commented at the event, “It will be a great comedy adventure about a pre-historic culture clash between two tribes, one comparatively evolved tribe, and one un-evolved tribe.” He also drew parallels between the English and the French in describing the two tribes. “Let’s just say it’s the start of the Entente Cordial and it explains why the English Channel is there.”

    Co-writing the screenplay with Cleese is Kirk DeMicco, who previously wrote the family film Racing Stripes, which came out on home video this week, and the animated adventure Quest for Camelot.

    The Cannes tribute to Aardman was part of DreamWorks’ big festival push for the Wallace and Gromit feature, of which several scenes were previewed for the audience.