AWN Headline News

Opening the weekend of February 11, 2000 in the U.K., TOY STORY 2 has

already broken box office records. Playing on 495 screens, the sequel

grossed US$12.8 million in its first three days. The feat even beat out

bohemeth-grossing STAR WARS EPISODE 1, which made only $12.5 million in its

first U.K. weekend. So far Buena Vista International, which is distributing

the film outside the U.S., said the movie has already grossed $332 million

worldwide. Playing on 3,334 screens outside the U.S. this past weekend, TOY

STEPHEN L. BRAIN, former senior VP and general manager at Fox Animation

Studios has joined STAN LEE MEDIA, INC. as their new executive VP of

Production. In his new post, Brain will create Stan Lee Media's new digital

animation studio dedicated to developing Internet entertainment. Brain will

supervise the production team of storyboard artists, digital artists and

Flash animators as well as increasing Stan Lee's roster of 50 artists to

100 artists within the next 90 days. Beginning his career in 1977, Brain

* Saturday, February 26, 2000. Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Women In Animation, Inc. will be holding their annual meeting with guest

speaker Lynda Weinman of lynda.com. The meeting introduces members and

anyone interest in WIA with what has happened in the past year and what

exciting events and activities are on the way in 2000. Weinman, a pioneer

of graphic and animation on the MAC, will bring to the event her knowledge

After five years in existence, Fox Animation Studios is laying off nearly

70% of its Phoenix-based toon factory's staff. The restructuring of the

animation department will include more contract work outside the studio.

President of animation at Fox, Chris Meledandri said a foundation of 65-100

of the now 320 employees will remain, including, of course, studio staples

Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. Fox will continue to perform pre-production

work including storyboarding, character design, production design and

Jim Varney, the comic who most recently provided the voice of Slinky Dog in

TOY STORY and TOY STORY 2, died on Thursday, February 10, 2000 at his

Tennessee home of lung cancer. He was 50 years old. Best known for his

Ernest character in commercials, television and films, Varney also provided

voice over work for characters on the THE SIMPSONS. Varney was the star of

several Disney Ernest films, most notably ERNEST GOES TO CAMP and ERNEST

SAVES CHRISTMAS. Doctors diagnosed Varney with cancer in August 1998, and

When the day broke on February 15, 2000, an old man wasn't humdrum about

joining a list of Oscar nominees that included three misses and my

grandmother who irons shirts! The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and

Sciences has released its list of nominations for this year's Oscar

competition. In the category of animated short films the nominees are:

Aardman Animations' Peter Peaks' HUMDRUM; Torril Cove's MY GRANDMOTHER

IRONED THE KING'S SHIRTS; Alexander Petrov's oil paint on glass in IMAX

This week both Corel and Adobe announced that they were adding support for

Macromedia Flash to some of their flagship products. Adobe will be adding

support for Flash to their popular web development tool GoLive, which means

that Adobe users should be able to easily integrate Flash animation into

their existing GoLive projects. Corel also announced that it would be

adding support for Flash to Corel LINUX and CorelDRAW 9. Corel LINUX will

be the first Linux OS to include the Macromedia Flash Player as a standard

CINAR ENTERTAINMENT has filled the newly created seat of president with

PETER MOSS. In his position effective March 1, Moss will focus on

developing CINAR's entertainment business in North America, Latin America

and Asia. Before joining CINAR, Moss served as programming and production

VP for YTV, Canada's youth network. Moss has regularly worked in pre-school

programming with the Children's Television Network and the CBC.

Rumored since last fall, Walt Disney Animation Canada Inc. announced

Monday, February 14, 2000 it will close the doors of its animation studios

in Canada by the spring. Opened in 1996, the Toronto and Vancouver branches

of Walt Disney were created to produce primarily direct-to-home video films

in connection with Walt Disney Television Animation. The company slowly

started winding down production last fall and will completely close around

AtomFilms, a pioneer and leader in next-generation entertainment, announced

that it has entered into an agreement with Blockbuster, the global leader

in rentable home entertainment, for selected, syndicated, short-form,

digital content from AtomFilms to be video streamed on a co-branded section

of blockbuster.com. Beginning Spring 2000 and lasting for 2 years,

AtomFilms will provide both content and streaming-related technologies for

the short-form content component of the Blockbuster Web site. The

CHARLEX, a visual effects post-production house, helped the National

Football League thank their fans with a 60-second spot aired during

American football's biggest game, the Super Bowl. Headed by Alex Weil,

Charlex founder and director, the Charlex artists used a mix of film,

digital effects, graphics and editing to create the look of the "Thank You

2000" spot. The commercial begins on a shadowy checkerboard. Suddenly light

floods into the room as a uniformed football player makes his way to an old