AWN Headline News

A BUG'S LIFE, a Walt Disney Pictures presentation of a Pixar AnimationStudios film, has climbed to $358 million in worldwide box office receiptsto become one of the top-grossing animated films of all time. With itsdomestic gross of $163 million, the film has already become the fourthbiggest animated feature released in the United States (behind THE LIONKING, ALADDIN and TOY STORY). Internationally, A BUG'S LIFE has agross-to-date of $195 million and has set records in the United Kingdom,

WATERSHIP DOWN, a $10 million TV series of 26 half-hour episodes based onthe novel by Richard Adams and the feature film directed by Martin Rosen,both of which are also called WATERSHIP DOWN, is being produced by Britishindependent Alltime Entertainment and Toronto-based DECODE Entertainment.Beth Stevenson, of DECODE, and Simon Vaughan, of Alltime, are producing;Neil Court, of DECODE, is executive producing with Steven DeNure and MartinRosen. The series will debut this Fall in the UK on ITV and Canada on YTV,

Andreas Wessel-Therborn, animator, will speak on The Animator on Animating as part of The Careers in Animation Third Annual Lecture Series. Mr. Wessel-Therborn has worked on THE THIEF AND THE COBBLER, SPACE JAM, BALTO, TARZAN, and FANTASIA 2000. The event takes place Tuesday, May 4, at 7 pm in the Glendale Community College Auditorium, 1500 North Verdugo Road, Glendale, California, USA. Admission is $5 in advance, or $7 at the door. Tickets are available from GCC Bookstore Business Office (818) 240-1000, ext. 5695; or ASIFA-Hollywood (818) 842-8330.

Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis' new film, WHEN THE DAY BREAKS, willcompete with ten live-action films, and one animated film, BILLY'SBALLOON by Don Hertzfeldt (LILY + JIM), for the top prize in the ShortFilm competition at this year's 52nd Festival de Cannes in Cannes,France. The Festival takes place Wednesday, May 12th through Sunday, May23rd. Wendy Tilby is perhaps best known for STRINGS. For moreinformation visit the festival's official homepage atwww.festival-cannes.fr/cannes99.

The Kushner-Locke Co. has announced that they have entered an agreementwith Toei Animation to license Toei's animated product. Toei has one ofthe largest animation libraries in the world. K-L plans to use the newlyacquired product to launch its own Spanish language animation channel inLatin America. The deal gives K-L 1400 half-hour episodes, in the firstthree years, of Toei animated product including the popular seriesSAILOR MOON and DRAGON BALL Z. Toei is one of the leading animation

On Monday in the USA, toymaker Hasbro introduced a series of actionfigures, play sets, vehicles, and other toys based on STAR WARS: EPISODE I- THE PHANTOM MENACE, the prequel to the STAR WARS trilogy. Most Toys R Usstores and some FAO Schwarz and K-B Toys stores opened at 12:01 a.m. on May3, and within hours their stock was sold out. "It was unbelievable.Insane," says AWN's Heather Kenyon, who visited four stores in the LosAngeles area. "People were leaving with shopping carts filled up. It was

Fox Family Channel's 1999-2000 6 pm-8 pm lineup includes two new animated series. Saban Entertainment's PIGS NEXT DOOR, a new animated series in the tradition of ALL IN THE FAMILY, chronicles the life of a family of pigs who move from the farm to the suburbs and are forced to deal with prejudiced humans. Rodney Dangerfield provides the voice for the title character of RODNEY, a series in development for the 1999-2000 season that depicts Rodney's misadventures as a struggling comic and the everyday ups and downs of dysfunctional family life.

Frank Gladstone, Head of Artist Development at DreamWorks, and Clifford Cohen, founder and president of AnimAction, have joined forces as members of UNICEF's International Animation Consortium for Child's Rights to create an animated PSA that addresses the Right to a Name and a Nationality. The PSA will be screened on June 4 at the Annecy Film Festival in Annecy, France. Also at the Festival, Mr. Cohen will speak about "How Animation Can Change People's Thinking."

In opening statements in the second phase of a $250 million breach-of-contract lawsuit, Jeffrey Katzenberg's lawyer Bert Fields presented a series of memos to bolster his argument that Disney concocted a contract argument over an incentive bonus to deprive Katzenberg of the money he was owed for making the Disney company a success while he was the chief of Disney's film entertainment division. During Katzenberg's first few years at Disney, operating income went from $2.3 million in 1984 to $186.3 million in 1988.