AWN Headline News

A.D.V. Films is releasing the following anime titles in the US. On November9: MARTIAN SUCCESSOR NADESICO VOLUME 1 - INVASION! - An unorthodox crewfights to save Earth from annihilation by Martians; COMPILER 2 - It'sCompiler versus Compiler in deadly showdown!; and ORIGINAL DIRTY PAIRVOLUME 4 - Kei and Yuri stumble upon a child who is the sole survivor of amass murder committed over twenty years ago. November 23: BUBBLEGUM CRISISVOLUME 2 - TRIAL BY FIRE - Sylia's brother Mackey joins the team as the

CARTOON NETWORK has promoted MARK NORMAN to senior vice president ofbusiness operations for Cartoon Network USA and BOOMERANG. Norman will beresponsible for long range strategic planning and forecasting, includingnetwork investments in original programming and program acquisitions. Hewill also oversee all business and operational aspects of the new CartoonNetwork Studio in Los Angeles, as well as orchestrate the launch and manageall operation of Boomerang, the network's new classic animation channelwhich will launch on April 1, 2000.

A website devoted to Walt Disney has been launched atdisney.go.com/disneyatoz/waltdisney/home.html. The site coversDisney's entire career, and features clips from Disney's animated andlive-action films, as well as family photos and home movies.

San Diego, California-based Pixels, Inc. is shipping version 3.2 of PiXELS:3D for Power MacIntosh. The new version is 25% faster than the previousversion. Among the features are: an Inverse Kinematics system that lets youdraw bones and create joints; Organic Modeling that enables users to moldprimitive objects like clay; a MorphMaker that allows for multi-targetmorphing and an Animation Timeline that lets you fine tune the movement ofobjects. PiXELS: 3D 3.2 Studio version sells for US$299.00 and PiXELS: 3D3.2 Studio Pro version sells for US$499.

McFarlane Toys is releasing four dual-packed assortments of action figures based on characters in YELLOW SUBMARINE featuring The Beatles, John, Paul, George and Ringo. Each card comes with two figures and accessories. John comes with Jeremy, the Nowhere Man; Paul comes with Glove, one of the Blue Meanies instruments of evil; George comes with the Yellow Submarine; and Ringo comes with a Blue Meanie. The figures will be released in late September or early October, and retail for between US$8 and $11.

San Jose, California-based Adobe Systems Incorporated has announced Adobe After Effects 4.1. After Effects is a tool for motion graphics designers and visual effects artists working with film, video, multimedia and the Web. Among the new features are: support for enhanced media exchange, performance enhancements, workflow refinements, and extended creative options and control. Adobe After Effects 4.1 will be available in September 1999 in the US and Canada for an estimated street price of US$699 for the standard version and US$1,499 for the production bundle.

Tens of thousands of gameboys in the US and Canada flocked to retail outlets early on the morning of Thursday, September 9 as the Sega Dreamcast videogame console was made available for the first time in North America. As Sega expected, sales for the console during the first 24-hours set a new record for biggest 24-hours in entertainment retail sales with a total of $97,904,618.09 (about 500,000 players at a retail price of $199). The previous record was held by STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE, with its $28 million boxoffice on its first day of release in May 1999.

Buena Vista's supernatural thriller THE SIXTH SENSE, with visual effects byDreamQuest, finished second at the US weekend boxoffice after topping thelist for its first five weeks of release, grossing an estimated $17 millionover the weekend, for a total of $198.2 million. No other animation relatedfilms finished in the top ten.