Corto Maltese could make some decent coin in limited theatrical release and on DVD if hyped right, plus it’s a recognizable franchise already. © Ellipse Programme/Imedia/ConG. All rights reserved and © 2002 Home Made Movies.

There’s a shiny, shiny golden opportunity to cash in on distributing European animated movies in the U.S. Just like Streamline Pictures did with manga in the late ‘80s and ‘90s (until being bought out in 1999 by Orion Pictures Corp., only recently acquired two years before by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), an enterprising American distributor like yourself could turn Europanimation into “the next big thing”… and shake that moneymaker.

But you better move quick if I’m writing about it here… because now everyone knows! Psyche!

As Seen on DVD
Bidnessmen being notoriously short on patience, I’ll spare you the bullskipping and cut to the chase… roll titles, please: Bécassine: The Viking Treasure (Home Made Movies/Dargaud Marina-Ellipsanime), Carnivale (Terraglyph/Millimages), Charley & Mimmo (Les Armateurs), Corto Maltese (Home Made Movies), Help! I’m a Fish (A Film), Kirikou and the Sorceress (Les Armateurs), Zorba and Lucky (Cecchi Gori Distribuzzione), It’s Raining Cats and Frogs (Folimage), Black Mor’s Island (Dargaud Distribution), Little Hippo (Pomalux), The Blue Arrow (Lanterna Magica), The Boy Who Wanted to be a Bear (Dansk Tegnefilm 2), The Dog, the General and the Pigeons (Roissy Films), Duck Ugly (Digital Animation Meida/Millimages/Terraglyph), Laura’s Star (Rothkirch/Cartoon-Film), Terkel in Trouble (Nordisk Film Production), Prince and Princesses (Les Armateurs), Dragon Hill (Millemetros), Toto Saporo (Lanterna Magica), A Monkey’s Tale (Les Films du Triangle) and Children of the Rain (Belokan).

The formula for success is to find a quality feature animated film that only need dubbing and a music remix (like Ugly Duckling and Me, above) and give it a U.S. release. © Ugly — Magma Films/A-Film/ Ulysses/ Futurikon 2005.

We’ll take a brief pause while you copy and paste the above paragraph into an e-mail to your lawyer. (To make it a fair fight — but mostly to separate the men from the boys — I intentionally omitted directors, contacts and even countries, although some are a dead geeve-a-way-o.)

Done? You get a cookie, ya hockey puck. (Don Rickles)

For the anecdote, I don’t know exactly how many of the above have actually cut deals to be distributed in the United States, but I’m guessing none. Wouldn’t it be nice to have 21 films in your catalogue? Right now?! They’re all finished. Quality feature animated films that only need dubbing (possibly a music remix)? Dubbing that can be paid for all or in part from European Media II (CARTOON) subsidies and done in the U.S., because the goal is to get international distribution and that can’t be done without… wait for it… an Amayreecan dub y’all, the sine qua non of U.S. distribution. And some exist in English… already.

And, hey! Set up your own dubbing studio while you’re at it! Gonna be more where that came from, European feature animation production is on the rise and the quality is getting better all the time. Might be an iota early, but by the time you get the 21 dubbed and to market, the next wave should be right behind — my picks? The Ugly Duckling and Me (A Film), Jeckyll & Hyde (Stardust Pictures), A Town Called Panic (La Parti Production), Iqbal, Tale of a Fearless Child (Gertie) — by then, you will have made your name as the go-to guy in the States for European producers. And possibly have pulled off an Akira while you’re at it, like Streamline did. With the return on investment margin you’d be sportin,’ you’d then actually have some dough to cough up for a minimum guarantee or top off money or… out-of-pocket production funding!