AWN Headline News

GLADIATOR director Ridley Scott and mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer have teamed up to produce a new pirate picture entitled CAPTAIN KIDD, based on the life of the 17th century pirate. The film will be a co-production between Disney and Scott's Scott Free Films with Scott directing. Disney bought the idea in a near six-figure deal with writers Doug Cook and David Weisberg (THE ROCK and DOUBLE JEOPARDY).

The critically acclaimed animated flick, CHICKEN RUN, will fly into video stores on November 21, 2000. Fans of the US$105 million box office hit will be able to own the death-defying adventures of Ginger and the rest of the Tweedy Farm hens as they race time to avoid the chopping block. The film features the voices of Mel Gibson, Julia Sawalha and Miranda Richardson. The DVD will feature audio commentary from directors Nick Park and Peter Lord, "The Hatching of CHICKEN RUN" featurette, a "making of" documentary and interactive games.

ATTIK, a global creative solutions company, produced and designed the new branding campaign to launch the Sony PlayStation game, MOTORACER WORLD TOUR. The campaign contains a 30-second spot with a 15-second cutdown, a full spread and single page print ad, the front cover of the game and its point of purchase packaging. The spot features game footage woven together with typography and a CGI motorcycle.

KING OF THE HILL creators Greg Daniels and Mike Judge have teamed to develop a live-action series based off of the series' TV preacher Monsignor Martinez. Jim Dauterive, a supervising producer on KING, is set to produce the new show. Martinez is a recurring character on a TV soap that Peggy Hill and the rest of her family watch religiously. The spinoff would chronicle the vigilante adventures of the rough and tough priest. Insiders say that Fox TV is close to placing a script order for the series.

Jack Ozark, animator and newspaper sports cartoonist, died on November 16, 2000. He was 82-years-old. In 1931, Ozark started his career at the Fleischer Studios, animating on POPEYE, BETTY BOOP and GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. He served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps and afterward moved to Los Angeles to work on the early Hanna-Barbera shows YOGI BEAR, FLINTSTONES and TOP CAT. He specialized in animating Snagglepuss and Wally Gator. He finished out his career at Filmation on HE-MAN and SHE-RA until his retirement in 1987. He was awarded the L.A. Cartoonists' Union 839 Golden Award in 1992.

Despite a report in the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER that the company is bankrupt, Internet animation producer and distributor Dotcomix is in discussions to be bought. AWN spoke with founder and chief creative officer Brad DeGraf and he said the company "just couldn't keep producing as it had in the past." DeGraf said the production staff has been laid off until the transition period is finished. However, president and CEO Damon Danielson has left the company to become the CEO of Video4I, a multi-platform video streaming company.

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BOXX Technologies, a leading provider of digital content creation tools for the entertainment and digital film industries, announced that James H. Moore has joined the company as chairman. Moore recently served as president and COO at Crossroads Systems, a high-technology manufacturer of fibre channel storage routers for the computer networking industry. Prior to joining Crossroads Systems, Moore was vice president and general manager of Crystal Semiconductor and Cirrus Logic.

FilmCore's editor Michael Bartoli and ILM director Bill Werts have teamed on the new spot for Toyota's new Corolla S Model. The 30-second spot opens on a newspaper floating in the air above a suburban street. On the center of the front page is a large picture of a man who comes to life and tries to hail a ride from a passing car. Werts and the team at ILM shot a real newspaper against blue-screen, with the paper attached to monofilament to make it dance. The actor was shot separately then composited with the newspaper. Initial compositing was performed by Bartoli on Avid.

At this weekend's box office, Universal's HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS thieved the U.S. crown with a multi-record breaking premiere. The GRINCH grossed US$55.08 million, making it the biggest debut for star Jim Carrey and director Ron Howard, best non-holiday debut in November, biggest opening for a non-sequel and the eighth biggest weekend gross of all time. Therefore, Paramount and Nickelodeon's THE RUGRATS IN PARIS had to settle for a second place premiere. The second feature based on the wildly popular RUGRATS TV series, with animation by Klasky Csupo, grossed $22.72 million.