Cinema Management Group has picked up the worldwide rights to the just-completed animated feature film KILLER BEAN FOREVER. The film, directed and produced by vfx industry veteran Jeff Lew, is the full-length feature follow up to the popular short film KILLER BEAN 2: THE PARTY.
The short took the Internet by storm when it was released on iFilm in 2000, garnering more than 1.8 million unique hits and becoming a cult favorite. It features a crime-infested world called Beantown inhabited by coffee beans, in which Killer Bean is the star assassin, pursuing the mobster Cappuccino and his gang with the help of Detective Cromwell. Now KILLER BEAN FOREVER continues this fight.
Director/producer Lew brings more than 10 years of experience in the visual FX industry, with a resume that includes lead animator on MATRIX RELOADED, X-MEN, LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION, THE SPIDERMAN Universal Studios ride film, THE SIMPSONS Universal Studios ride film, and the upcoming TRANSFORMERS 2. After the success of KILLER BEAN 2: THE PARTY, he formed an independent studio called Killer Bean Studios specializing in the production of CG animated feature films. KILLER BEAN FOREVER is his directorial debut.
Lew said, "It's a gritty action movie with a quirky sense of humor, something you don't see much in CG animation. Personally I feel animation is a great medium for action movies because there's no limitation to the scope and scale of your vision. Realistically, the ambitious action sequences that are in the movie would have been impossible for me to make in live action on an indie film's budget. That being said, making this feature film as an independent CG animation was a massive undertaking. I was able to pull from my extensive experience in the vfx industry to give KILLER BEAN FOREVER the look and quality that audiences expect."
CMG will offer the film to buyers for the first time in Toronto and then at AFM this fall.
The cast includes Vegas E. Trip, Bryan Session, David S.J. Guilmette, and Matthew Tyler. Trip stars as Killer Bean and brings 20 years of voiceover experience to the project, most recently in the videogames POWER RANGERS: DINO THUNDER and SAM & MAX. Session also brings more than 20 years experience as a voiceover artist, with such video games as SYPHON FILTER 2 & 3, TEKKEN 4, PANZER GENERAL and SILENT HUNTER among his credentials.
Guilmette has been a theatre actor and independent film actor for many years, having appeared in leading roles in over a dozen independent feature films, including portraying Galileo in the History Channel series MAN, MOMENT, MACHINE. Cappuccino is played by Tyler, who has made several appearances on such well-known soap operas as ALL MY CHILDREN and AS THE WORLD TURNS.
