Monday, February 25, 2008

Warner Bros. Animation

My second studio-visit post of the day (and equally exciting and edifying).

Warners, now on the Warners north lot (formerly known as "The Columbia Ranch") doesn't have a huge number of people working, but currently staff is working on a new Scooby Doo dvd feature (Empires may fall and the sun may reach its "red star" phase, but the Scoob will go on forever). Work on it continues into the Spring.

As mentioned previously, an order for 13 half-hours of new Batmans will commence shortly. And as not announced previously, a Wonder Woman dvd feature will soon be in development.

Batman, of course, is an ever-green (as in moolah) franchise, and Warner Bros. has just put out this press release about its latest offering:

DC Comics, Warner Premiere, Warner Home Video and Warner Bros. Animation have collaborated to create a unique Batman experience in Batman: Gotham Knight. The all-new, original movie will arrive July 8, 2008 on DVD and Blu-ray Disc ...

Batman: Gotham Knight was headed by an impressive list of directors who have brought their distinctly different anime styles to the classic Batman character. The production was divided among three renowned studios – Studio 4ÂșC, Production I.G and Madhouse – and included the truly inimitable visions of directors Shojiro Nishimi, Futoshi Higashide, Hiroshi Morioka, Yasuhiro Aoki and Toshiyuki Kubooka. With stories written by several of the most talented writers of film, comic books, and animation, including Academy Award®-nominated screenwriter Josh Olson (A History of Violence), David S. Goyer (Batman Begins), Emmy®-winner Alan Burnett (Batman: The Animated Series), Jordan Goldberg (Associate Producer, The Dark Knight), and award-winning comics writers Greg Rucka and Brian Azzarello ...

And so on. Hopefully, Warners will be reasserting itself as the year goes on.

5 comments:

Michael said...

Any news on the future of any of the shows currently on KidsWB, as 4Kids is taking over the programming block?

Anonymous said...

Yes, are some of those KWB! shows coming over to Cartoon Network?

Steve Hulett said...

I think you can forget WBA doing shows for KWB. Time-Warner isn't happy with the margins and so sloughed it off.

Word I get is that the animation division, for the moment, will be focusing on direct-to-video features.

Anonymous said...

As a former WBA employee, it is just sad to see how much the atmosphere has changed over there. It was once a thriving studio. Now it is a shallow of its former self adrift without a strong leader.

Anonymous said...

So, 4Kids aren't getting the Warner Bros. shows at all? And The Batman's renewed? Just let the KWB shows come to CN, they're sisters.

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