What a busy week! RETURN OF THE KING swept the Academy Awards on Sunday with a record-tying 11 Oscars, while FINDING NEMO and HARVIE KRUMPET took the animation honors. Then today the great Disney showdown finally took place at the annual shareholder meeting in Philadelphia, with more than 43% voting against retaining Michael Eisner as chairman and ceo.

IMAX Corp. and Tom Hanks' and Gary Goetzman's Playtone have reached a deal with Lockheed Martin, to have the aerospace company sponsor the forthcoming IMAX 3D film, MAGNIFICENT DESOLATION. The 45-minute space documentary, which will be shot in giant 15/70 format using IMAX 3D cameras, will detail the life-changing experience of the 12 men who walked on the moon by showcasing what these men saw, heard, felt, thought and did while on the lunar surface.

After three successful years rhinofx, the New York visual effects studio, has launched a new division offering 3D previsualization. Having ventured into visual effects projects for film, television and video games, rhinofx is doubling its workspace in their New York midtown office building. A larger workforce and more artist stations are in place and previs services are being ramped up to form the new division called rhinofx previz.

Cameron Folds, an Ex'pression College for Digital Arts alum, has begun work on STAR WARS: EPISODE III as a creature animator with the aid of the school's Career Development Program.

3D Festival 2004, held May 3-6 in Copenhagen, Denmark, has just announced its preliminary list of speakers and sessions for its three conferences: 3D Festival, Game Developers World and Architectural Visualization.

3D Festival 2004 Preliminary Speaker List and Sessions (subject to change)

Justin Leach, Softimage
"CG and Anime - Innocence: GHOST IN THE SHELL 2"
Emile Edwin Smith, Zoic Studios
"The VFX of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA"
Jordi Bares, The Mill
"Artificial Intelligence in Commercials
Building Crowds"

The Game Developers Conference 2004 (GDC), held March 22-26 in San Jose, California, has updated its Visual Arts Track lineup, which is designed "to take art and animation in new directions." Sessions are focused on intermediate and advanced artists and are expanded in length to walk attendees step-by- step through the latest tools and technologies.

Keynotes:
"From Visual Anti-Establishmentarianism to Ubiquity and Back"
John Gaeta
Visual effects supervisor for the feature films THE MATRIX, THE MATRIX RELOADED, AND THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS

Despite fan quibbling about the packaging and lack of significant extras, STAR TREK VOYAGER - THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON (Paramount Home Ent., $129.99) nonetheless arrives on DVD with all 15 original episodes from '95 looking and sounding better than ever. For some, the series is better than NEXT GENERATION with its emphasis on the science, intrigue and fun of time travel, wormholes and four-dimensional creatures.

SPY KIDS director Robert Rodriguez has signed on to helm a feature version of Edgar Rice Burroughs' sci-fi classic, A PRINCESS OF MARS, for Paramount Pictures, reported VARIETY. The film will be produced by Alphaville Prods. and Rodriguez's Troublemaker Studios. Alphaville's Sean Daniel and Jim Jacks, along with Rodriguez Troublemaker's Elizabeth Avellan, will produce the project, which is set to begin production early next year. The film will be based on the first book in the 11-novel JOHN CARTER OF MARS series. THE CELL screenwriter Mark Protosevich is penning the script.

Digital Artist Agency (DAA) has signed THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST visual effects supervisor Ted Rae to feature, television and commercial projects.

In addition to his work in Italy on the Mel Gibson religious epic that raked in a heavenly $125M in its first five days, Rae also served as the film's second unit director and second unit dp. Rae was additionally responsible for vfx design, realtime motion control, miniature photography, CGI and digital compositing.

Lions Gate Ent. has been granted film rights to develop, produce and distribute theatrical films based upon Marvel properties -- IRON FIST and BLACK WIDOW. Marvel and Lions Gate will share equally in certain revenues derived from the properties, with Lions Gate funding development, production and distribution and Marvel handling all merchandising in connection with the films. The companies have also announced their plans to begin developing THE PUNISHER II.