Tagged With: Animated

Major U.S. networks have been bitten by an animation bug and have recently announced a slew of primetime animated series. ABC has worked out a deal with Miramax and Touchstone TV for six episodes of CLERKS, based on director Kevin Smiths 1994 indie film of the same name. Slated for a midseason or fall 2000 launch, the show will be executive-produced by Smith and former SEINFELD supervising producer, Dave Mandel. Like the film, the TV series, only the second ever produced by Miramax, focuses on two young slackers who keep minimum-wage jobs in New Jersey.

For the first time since the October 2 release of "Antz," there were no animated films in the box office top ten. DreamWorks' THE PRINCE OF EGYPT is still the top animated film placing 11th with $1.9M and a grand total of $93.3M domestically. The film's total worldwide gross to date is $197.8M. Disney/Pixar's A BUG'S LIFE placed 15th with $1.4M bringing its spectacular sum to $155.9M in North America. Worldwide, the insect film has brought in a total of $213.1M and is still going strong. The film's opening in the U.K.

GLC Productions, a New York-based production/post-production company, debuts their maiden series venture at this year's show, The Buddy System, an animated Seinfeld meets The Odd Couple. The show, created by Big Nate syndicated cartoonist Lincoln Peirce, centers on the escapades of Buddy and Howie, a pair of sports-crazy twenty-something bachelors. Projected as a weekly half-hour 3D animated series, GLC has produced a 7-minute segment from the premiere viewable at NATPE.

Four animated series are making their U.S. debuts at NATPE this year through Paris-based Canal+ Distribution/Canal+ Image International: Fennec (52 x 13 minutes), Blazing Dragons (26 x 13 minutes) created by Monty Pythons Terry Jones, The Pirate Family (26 x 26 minutes) and Tristan & Isolde (26 x 26 minutes). Canal+ is also offering the feature-length version of the animated feature, Trouble with Sophie, based on the famous childrens book by the Countess Segur.

With the holidays behind and the children back in school, this winter's animated films are slowly starting to head out and make way for spring's batch of films. DreamWorks' "The Prince of Egypt" held eighth place with $3.6M after 6 weeks of release for a grand total of $87.3M. Disney/Pixar's "A Bug's Life" passed the $150M mark placing twelfth with a grand cume of $151.7M. The family-targeted Disney remake of "Mighty Joe Young," featuring extensive CGI work took fourteenth amassing $2.5M and a 5-week sum of $43.4M.

Wanting to get a piece of the lucrative animated feature pie, Miramax Filmshas announced their acquisition of worldwide distribution rights to theanimated musical fairy tale, "The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina."The film is being produced at Hyperion Studios, known for other animatedworks such as "Life with Louie," "Bebe's Kids" and HBO's "Happily EverAfter: Fairy Tales for Every Child." The film features the voices of ElijahWood as Tom Thumb and Jennifer Love Hewitt as Thumbelina.The story

Disney may not have an animated film to put up against DreamWorks Prince of Egypt, but theyve come up with an ingenious way of profiting from the November release of A Bugs Life. The company announced that starting December 18th, a completely new set of animated bloopers will accompany the closing credits of the film.

Animated films played a very big role at this weekend's box office whichsaw strong performances from three animated features. After eight weeks,"ANTZ" remained in the Top 10 at No. 9 pulling in $2.3 million. "A Bug'sLife" was impressive in its one-theater debut in Hollywood, California'shistoric El Capitan theater grossing an amazing $291,000 during theweekend. This opening set house records at the El Capitan according tosources at Buena Vista. The biggest story this weekend though was