AWN Headline News

Melwood Pictures and Exodus Film Group announced that they have optioned the rights to world-famous magician and illusionist Nicholas Nights CG-animated/live-action feature film PAVLOVS DOG.

4Kids Ent. Inc. has acquired the worldwide licensing rights to CHAOTIC, Apex Marketing and Dracco Company Ltd.'s trading card game.

4Kids Entertainment will manage the licensing, marketing and promotional initiatives for this trading card property and will join creative forces with Apex Marketing to develop and produce an all-new children's animated series based on the property. 4Kids will jointly own the copyright to the television series, which is expected to debut on 4Kids TV in fall 2006.

Discovery HD Theater takes extraterrestrial coverage to the next level to the high definition level as it presents ALIEN PLANET on May 14, 2005 at 8:00 pm, the networks first ever simulcast event with the Discovery Channel. Continuing its out-of-this-world theme, on May 18 from 8-11:00 pm, Discovery HD Theater will present THE SCIENCE OF STAR WARS, a special that reveals various types of Star Wars-like equipment in use today and in the development stages.

Character Animation Technologies Ltd. released its latest version of CAT, the fully integrated, next-generation character animation plug-in for 3ds Max. CAT 1.4 provides animation professionals in games development, film, video and broadcast with an advanced toolset that transforms the way character animation is done, resulting in greater flexibility for the artist and much more efficient production times.

Thomson will have a leading role at the 2005 Cannes International Film festival by showcasing its advanced cinema technologies and as an official partner of the Short Film Corner at the Palais des Festivals. In addition, many of the films screened at this year's Festival were created using a variety of film and post-production services from Thomson.

Toon Boom Animation announced that its software will be use to complete Alphanims ROBOTBOY and an educational series from Sophia Hilton Foundation of Canada in collaboration with the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute and the Madras Craft Foundation.

Alphanim chose Toon Boom Opus for the production of ROBOTBOY, a series of 52 13-minute episodes. Co-produced with Cartoon Network Europe, France 3 and split among LuxAnimation (Luxemburg), Emation (Korea) and Monigotes (Spain), this traditional animation production is scheduled for primetime broadcast in the U.S.

DreamWorks Animation SKG has announced their next film collaboration with Aardman, a new comedy entitled CROOD AWAKENING. The announcement was made during a tribute to Aardman at the Cannes Film Festival, by DreamWorks Animation ceo Jeffrey Katzenberg, together with Aardman co-founders Peter Lord and David Sproxton.

CROOD AWAKENING will mark DreamWorks fourth film collaboration with Aardman, following 2000s CHICKEN RUN, this years WALLACE & GROMIT THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT and FLUSHED AWAY, which is planned for release in 2006.