Warner Bros. has greenlit OSMOSIS JONES for a Thanksgiving 2000 release.The film is a comedy/adventure about a street smart white blood-cell calledOsmosis Jones who teams up with a rookie cold tablet to fight a virus thatis attacking their host body, a construction worker named Frank Detomello.The film is written by Marc Hyman, with Tom Sito and Piet Kroon directing.The film will be Warner Bros. Feature Animation's third completely animatedrelease after QUEST FOR CAMELOT, and the upcoming THE IRON GIANT. Inaddition, Kids' WB! has ordered 13 episodes of an animated "Osmosis Jones"television series to be produced by Warner Bros. Television Animation. Theseries will air following the theatrical release of the film, and wasjointly announced by Susanne Daniels, president, Entertainment for The WB,and Jean MacCurdy, president, Warner Bros. Television Animation. OSMOSISJONES is writer Marc Hyman's first greenlit film, although he previouslypartnered with producer Zak Penn on FISH OUT OF WATER, currently indevelopment. Hyman has also written several other scripts being developedat various studios. Formerly at DreamWorks Feature Animation, Sito entereda one-year development deal with Warner Bros. Feature Animation in November1998 where he joined Piet Kroon on development for OSMOSIS JONES. AtDreamWorks Sito worked on story development for THE PRINCE OF EGYPT andANTZ, and was head of story on the upcoming films SHREK and SPIRIT. In alandmark six-figure deal, Sito joined DreamWorks in 1995, after leavingDisney with Jeffrey Katzenberg who formed DreamWorks SKG with StevenSpielberg and David Geffen. Sito is also president of the Motion PictureScreen Cartoonist's Union (M.P.S.C.) Local 839 and vice president ofASIFA-Hollywood. Piet Kroon studied Film and Theater Studies at UtrechtUniversity, specializing in animation. After his studies he worked as ananimator, illustrator and cartoonist. In 1990 he helped animate Universal'sAN AMERICAN TAIL II/FEIVEL GOES WEST. After finishing DADA, a ten minuteindependent animated film that Kroon wrote and directed, he moved to LosAngeles and worked as a storyman for Warner Bros. Feature Animation onQUEST FOR CAMELOT, and THE IRON GIANT. T.R.A.N.S.I.T., his award-winningsecond short film, was finished in 1997.
Read Tom Sito's "Disney's THE FOX AND THE HOUND: The Coming of the NextGeneration" in the November 1998 issue of Animation World Magazine.
Learn more about T.R.A.N.S.I.T.'s unique story and visual look at theofficial T.R.A.N.S.I.T. website.
Piet Kroon also wrote about T.R.A.N.S.I.T.'s production in "Don't Quit Your Day Job, Work the Night Shift" in the February 1997 issue of AnimationWorld Magazine.
