Warner Bros. has greenlit OSMOSIS JONES for a Thanksgiving 2000 release.
The film is a comedy/adventure about a street smart white blood-cell called
Osmosis Jones who teams up with a rookie cold tablet to fight a virus that
is attacking their host body, a construction worker named Frank Detomello.
The film is written by Marc Hyman, with Tom Sito and Piet Kroon directing.
The film will be Warner Bros. Feature Animation's third completely animated
release after QUEST FOR CAMELOT, and the upcoming THE IRON GIANT. In
addition, Kids' WB! has ordered 13 episodes of an animated "Osmosis Jones"
television series to be produced by Warner Bros. Television Animation. The
series will air following the theatrical release of the film, and was
jointly announced by Susanne Daniels, president, Entertainment for The WB,
and Jean MacCurdy, president, Warner Bros. Television Animation. OSMOSIS
JONES is writer Marc Hyman's first greenlit film, although he previously
partnered with producer Zak Penn on FISH OUT OF WATER, currently in
development. Hyman has also written several other scripts being developed
at various studios. Formerly at DreamWorks Feature Animation, Sito entered
a one-year development deal with Warner Bros. Feature Animation in November
1998 where he joined Piet Kroon on development for OSMOSIS JONES. At
DreamWorks Sito worked on story development for THE PRINCE OF EGYPT and
ANTZ, and was head of story on the upcoming films SHREK and SPIRIT. In a
landmark six-figure deal, Sito joined DreamWorks in 1995, after leaving
Disney with Jeffrey Katzenberg who formed DreamWorks SKG with Steven
Spielberg and David Geffen. Sito is also president of the Motion Picture
Screen Cartoonist's Union (M.P.S.C.) Local 839 and vice president of
ASIFA-Hollywood. Piet Kroon studied Film and Theater Studies at Utrecht
University, specializing in animation. After his studies he worked as an
animator, illustrator and cartoonist. In 1990 he helped animate Universal's
AN AMERICAN TAIL II/FEIVEL GOES WEST. After finishing DADA, a ten minute
independent animated film that Kroon wrote and directed, he moved to Los
Angeles and worked as a storyman for Warner Bros. Feature Animation on
QUEST FOR CAMELOT, and THE IRON GIANT. T.R.A.N.S.I.T., his award-winning
second short film, was finished in 1997.


Read Tom Sito's "Disney's THE FOX AND THE HOUND: The Coming of the Next
Generation" in the November 1998 issue of Animation World Magazine.


Learn more about T.R.A.N.S.I.T.'s unique story and visual look at the
official T.R.A.N.S.I.T. website.


Piet Kroon also wrote about T.R.A.N.S.I.T.'s production in
"Don't Quit Your Day Job, Work the Night Shift" in the February 1997 issue of Animation
World Magazine.