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ROCKY & BULLWINKLE Starts Production

Universal Pictures has begun production in Los Angeles on TribecaProductions' live-action/animated comedy adventure "The Adventures of Rockyand Bullwinkle," starring two time Academy Award(R) winner Robert De Niro("Raging Bull," "The Godfather Part II"), Jason Alexander (TV's "Seinfeld")and Rene Russo ("Get Shorty"). Des McAnuff ("Cousin Bette," Broadway's"The Who's Tommy") is directing from a screenplay by Kenneth Lonergan, withDe Niro and Jane Rosenthal producing. David Nicksay ("The Negotiator") andTiffany Ward, daughter of Rocky and Bullwinkle creator Jay Ward, are thefilm's executive producers.

Based on Ward's classic cartoon characters first introduced to televisionaudiences in 1959, "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle" will break newground in integrating dimensional computer-generated characters withlive-action sequences. The title characters will be realized by theOscar(R)-winning visual effects artists of Industrial Light & Magic underthe supervision of Dave Andrews ("Small Soldiers") and Roger Guyett("Saving Private Ryan"), augmented by the vocal talents of June Foray (thevoice of Rocky in all 326 episodes of the original series) as Rocky, andKeith Scott as Bullwinkle.

In the film, the animated characters Rocky the Flying Squirrel and hiserudite friend Bullwinkle J. Moose are living in a now desolate FrostbiteFalls, barely surviving on diminishing residual checks from re-runs oftheir old television series. Meanwhile, back in Pottsylvania, FearlessLeader (De Niro) and his notorious spies Boris Badenov (Alexander) andNatasha Fatale (Russo) have escaped their cartoon existence and are rebornas characters of flesh and blood, and are headed for Hollywood. There theevil trio hatch a ruthless plan to take over the world, leaving Rocky andBullwinkle to go head-to-head with their long-time nemeses Boris andNatasha, and stop them once and for all. THE ADVENTURES OF ROCKY ANDBULLWINKLE is scheduled to be released by Universal Pictures in the summerof 2000. In 1992, BORIS AND NATASHA, a live action film that featured someof the characters from THE ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE SHOW, but did not includethe Rocky & Bullwinkle characters, was made for television.

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