LOS ANGELES, CA -- Hasbro Studios, the Los Angeles-based entertainment division of Hasbro, Inc., announced an agreement with Malaysia’s leading studio, Vision Animation, and Australia’s Moody Street Kids to produce 26 half-hour episodes for the second season of Rescue Bots. The pact comes as the new animated Transformers franchise series has debuted to strong ratings both on The Hub, a joint venture between Hasbro and Discovery Communications in the U.S., and on many of the top broadcast networks globally.
Rescue Bots will be collaboratively produced by Hasbro in the U.S., Vision in Malaysia and Moody Street in Australia. This brings to eight the number of countries that will be involved in production or co-production deals with Hasbro Studios by the end of November, with the United States, China, Japan, Canada, South Korea and Spain also on the list. Pre-production on the Rescue Bot episodes will commence immediately and delivery is expected in mid-2014.
“We are always striving to find cutting edge talent around the world,” said Hasbro Studios President Stephen Davis. “With Vision and Moody Street, we now have another team of international production partners that share our vision and understanding of the power of brands. We are most impressed with their ability to take branded entertainment and create great emotional stories.”
The Vision agreement is significant to Malaysia, with Hasbro Studios becoming the first U.S. company to strike a deal under the terms of Malaysia’s recently announced production Tax Incentive program.
Following an introductory meeting between Davis and Malaysia’s Minister of Information, Culture and Communications two years ago, Vision joined the discussions. The animation studio at the forefront of developing Malaysia’s production industry, especially through co-productions with world-class partners, brought in Moody Street Kids with which they had collaborated on three previous projects. To ensure their ability to deliver high-quality animation and strong storytelling in conjunction with Hasbro Studios, the partners conducted a successful test prior to the deal being signed.
“Gill Carr of Moody Street Kids and I are delighted to be given the opportunity to bring the collective strengths of our studios to bear on the production of this fantastic show,” said Huoi-Seong Low, CEO of Vision Animation. “We are confident that this will be the first of many projects we will be doing together with Hasbro Studios.”
"I am happy and pleased to take note that the Malaysian Government's support and investments in the entertainment & media industry over the past few years have paid off,” said Dato' Sri Kamaruddin Siaraf, Secretary General of the Malaysian Ministry of Information, Communications and Culture. “Malaysia is being globally recognized as a reliable content production centre, ready for co-production opportunities, especially in 2D & 3D animation. The production deal between Hasbro Studios and Vision Animation is a landmark and certainly a testament to Malaysia's capabilities in producing award-winning, world-class animation for international markets at a competitive cost."
Source: Hasbro Studios