Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Imagi Happenings

As many know, the cartoon producer Imagi -- based in Hong Kong and Sherman Oaks -- has had an interesting roller coaster ride these past several months. (The global financial meltdown has not been kind.)

But the studio's new trailer for Gatchaman is now out and about, so there's production work going on beyond this fall's Astro Boy:

... [T]he trailer sums up the film’s theme with cryptic juxtaposed text, “A world in chaos, an alien evil, a lone warrior is found, earth’s last hope, five shall rise, ‘Gatchaman.’

Set in the not-too-distant future, “Gatchaman” sees a world on the verge of environmental and technological catastrophe attacked by an evil alien menace. Its only hope is a group of five genetically advanced teenagers in bird-themed uniforms. Naturally, they’ve got special abilities, fighting skills and spaceships to get the job done right ...

The game plan, as it's been related to me, is to get Astro Boy successfully launched, and then use the cash flow and momentum from that production to slingshot Gatchaman into full orbit.

The Sherman Oaks studio has down-sized staff over the past eight months as it's temporarily dropped development on features that are farther down the pipeline and focused on projects that have releases nearer at hand.

Hope they make it. There's a lot of competing product out there.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

When a studio doesn't pay employees for a week or two (as Imagi did a while back) they lose the trust of their employees. A whole bunch of people jumped ship and probably more want to, if they can find somewhere else to work. Let's hope Astroboy & Gatchaman make some money & that Imagi gets money & mojo back.

Anonymous said...

Too bad they just dismissed the (third set of) directors.

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