Comedy Central gets very animated in the coming week with the ninth season of SOUTH PARK, new episode of DRAWN TOGETHER and select broadcast of BEAVIS & BUTT-HEAD episodes and movie.
Discovery Kids brings spiders and mummies and ghosts all to life from Oct. 21-31, 2005, with its second annual Halloween Freak Week programming and online event for kids.
Nicktoons Network celebrates Halloween with its second annual Scare-A-Thon, featuring 48-hours of Nicktoons Networks spookiest Halloween-themed programming, commencing Oct. 29, 2005, at 8:00 am through Oct. 31 at 8:00 am. The two-day marathon will be hosted by Edgar and Ellen, the set of mischievous twins featured in the EDGAR & ELLEN book series from Simon & Schuster Childrens Publishing.
The long-in-the-works CG feature, FOODFIGHT!, has announced its star-studded voice cast, according to VARIETY. Charlie Sheen (TVs TWO AND A HALF MEN), Eva Longoria (TVs DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES), Wayne Brady (TVs THE WAYNE BRADY SHOW), Chris Kattan (FEVER PITCH) and Christopher Lloyd (BACK TO THE FUTURE) will provide the voices for the Threshold Animation Studios and Lions Gate Family Ent. production.
The International Interactive Emmy Awards 2006Cannes, FranceApril 5, 2006Deadline: October 31, 2005
The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences will be holding the International Interactive Emmy Awards at MIP-TV. The competition is open to interactive television companies located outside of the U.S. in three categories: Interactive Television Program; Interactive Channel; and Interactive Television Service.
The 10th British Academy Childrens Film And Television Awards, hosted by the British Academy in association with Time Warner, has announced its nominations. The event will be held on Sunday, Nov. 27, 2005, at the London Hilton on Park Lane. Awards presenters of this ceremony will include some of the best known faces from television, music, sports and film.
Animation World Network is proud to announce the launch of the new AWN Showcase.
School of Visual Arts (SVA) honors Heinz Edelmann, one of the leading art directors, illustrators and designers of our time, with its Masters Series Award and retrospective exhibition. Every year, SVA bestows the award to a groundbreaking visual artist, designer, photographer or illustrator who, over the course of his/her career, has been recognized as a great visual communicator. The Masters Series: Heinz Edelmann will be on view through Dec. 3, 2005 at the Visual Arts Museum.
eDward VI is the international film competition of the eDIT 8 Filmmaker's Festival. This year marks the first-ever online component of the annual young filmmakers competition, sponsored and created by AWN and VFXWorld in conjunction with the festival. For the next three weeks, until November 13, 2005, everyone is encouraged to view all 11 short film finalists and vote for their favorite 30-second film! The eDward online audience choice award complements the jury award presented at the festival in Frankfurt, Germany.
Warner Home Video has released LOONEY TUNES: GOLDEN COLLECTION, VOLUME 3 and LOONEY TUNES: MOVIE COLLECTION on DVD.
LOONEY TUNES: GOLDEN COLLECTION, VOLUME 3 features restored, remastered and completely uncut and uncensored classic Looney Tunes shorts. Disc one is dedicated to Bugs Bunny cartoons with special features that include: * 1989 Documentary: CHUCK AMUCK * A-Hunting We Must Go: Chuck Jones Wabbit Season Twilogy Featurette* THE BUGS BUNNY SHOW: The Honey-Mousers* Bull Point Puns Audio Recording Session
Test your skills and challenge your brain with AWN's Animation Trivia Quiz.
On Oct. 25, 2005, Manga Ent. will release of the all new anime co-production STREET FIGHTER ALPHA: GENERATIONS. Alongside a host of new action figures, trading cards and games which will be released by a score of different companies in conjunction with national STREET FIGHTER month this October, ALPHA: GENERATIONS brings the untold origin story of STREET FIGHTERs most intriguing and popular characters to DVD.
Perhaps giving JibJab a run for its website political humor money is BECOME A REPUBLICAN (www.thefrown.com/frowners/becomerepublican.swf) on The Frown.com. Written and drawn by Brian Frisk, the animated comic satirically points out the benefits of going from being a blue state voter to a red state voter in the U.S.
With music by Shok, the style and character design seems to be inspired by UPA and THE SIMPSONS.
Electronic Arts (EA) is investing up to $2.6 million for a training program to grow its workforce of gamemakers at EA Montreal (EAM) with the technical and creative skills they need to develop the next-generation of interactive entertainment. Michelle Courchesne, Quebec minister of Employment and Social Solidarity, said that Emploi Quebec will contribute $660,000 toward this initiative.
Harry E. Sloan, a member of the MGM board of directors, has been named chairman/ceo of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. Sloan will also invest in MGM and become part of the ownership group, which ownership is currently as follows: Providence Equity Partners (29%), Texas Pacific Group (21%), Sony (20%), Comcast (20%), DLJ Merchant Banking Partners (7%), and Quadrangle Group (3%).
Zizzle Llc will deliver the first mass-market toy line ever offered behind Disneys PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN franchise, which encompasses the recently announced DEAD MANS CHEST sequel and the yet to be named final film in the trilogy.
AMELIE director Jean-Pierre Jeunet is the latest helmer to sign on to direct Fox 2000's adaptation of the Man Booker Prize-winning Yann Martel novel LIFE OF PI, reports VARIETY. Jeunet will also team with his writing partner Guillaume Laurant to pen the script.
Novel follows the journey of a 16-year-old boy from India to Canada. After a ship wreck, the boy becomes the sole human survivor on a lifeboat with a hyena, an injured zebra and a hungry tiger.
Fox has hired SWORDFISH writer Skip Woods to turn the videogame HITMAN into a feature film vehicle for Vin Diesel, according to VARIETY. The studio purchased the film rights to the Eidos game in June from producers Chuck Gordon and Adrian Askarieh. Diesel is set to exec produce with Daniel Alter producing and Fox president of production Hutch Parker and evp Alex Young overseeing. The story follows international assassin, Agent 47, who works for a mysterious agency dubbed the Agency.
Toy Play Llc, a division of global consumer products innovators The Betesh Group, will unveil its new lines of licensed dolls, toys, furniture, play tents, slumber bags and room décor and at the 2006 Fall Toy Show, October 24-27 at the Toy Play showroom located at 1107 Broadway, Suite 700. New licenses include HI HI PUFFY AMIYUMI and SUPERMAN.
NVIDIA GeForce graphics processing units (GPUs) have been selected by Activision as the preferred platform for CALL OF DUTY 2, the sequel to Infinity Wards 2003 Game of the Year.
Launching an aggressive new effort to combat piracy, The Walt Disney Studios will utilize state-of-the-art encryption technology from Cinea, a subsidiary of Dolby Laboratories, for 2005 DVD awards screeners. The agreement marks a milestone in the search for an industry-wide solution to deter movie piracy.
Among the likely contenders for DVD awards screeners are CHICKEN LITTLE, HOWLS MOVING CASTLE, THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, SHOPGIRL AND CASANOVA.
The Weinstein Co., the media enterprise launched this month by Bob and Harvey Weinstein, announced that it has completed a $490 million private placement of equity. TWC has a significant number of well-known strategic, financial and individual investors among its equity holders, including affiliates of GLG Partners, Goldman, Sachs & Co., Perry Capital, Quinta Communications S.A., Softbank Corp., TF1 S.A., WPP, a Mark Cuban investment company, and Vivi Nevo, among others. The Weinstein brothers are the founders of Miramax Films.
NewTek Inc. announced that artists from Eden FX and Zoic Studios are relying on LightWave 3D for the production of content and shots for a large number of new and returning primetime shows for the fall 2005 season. NewTeks Emmy-winning 3D application is being used extensively for visual effects for such series as LOST, ALIAS, COMMANDER IN CHIEF, SURFACE, INVASION, THRESHOLD, E-RING, PRISON BREAK, CSI, CSI: MIAMI and OVER THERE.
DOOM (with vfx by Framestore CFC and Double Negative) proved to be a tepid box office leader, despite its popularity as a First Person Shooter videogame. For the weekend ended Oct. 23, 2005, the Universal release debuted at $15.4M. Bowing in second place was DreamWorks family drama, DREAMER: INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY (with vfx by Hammerhead), which brought in $9.1M. Following in third was Aardman/DreamWorks WALLACE & GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT. The stop-motion gem (with vfx from MPC) took in $8.5M and now has a three-week cume of $43.9M.
Each month, Animation World Magazine focuses its attention on a particular theme. Its an opportunity to delve more in-depth into a specific area of the animation industry.
