Gotham Group makes animated movies
production company makes deals with Lionsgate and IDT
The Gotham Group will make 19 direct-to-DVD animated movies over the next 3 years, using Dark Horse, Simon & Schuster, William Steig and Maurice Sendak properties.
(Source: ICv2.com)
Management/production company The Gotham Group has inked deals with both Lionsgate Films and IDT Entertainment to produce 19 direct-to-DVD animated movies over the next 3 years. The films will be adapted from various properties from Dark Horse Comics (Sin City, Hellboy), William Steig (Shrek), Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are), and Simon & Schuster children's books.
Gotham will produce 10 animated flicks with Lionsgate and 9 with IDT. Gotham is putting up $3 million per film. The films will be made in Korea.
This deal is very similar to the one Lionsgate inked with Marvel (which produced the successful The Ultimate Avengers animated release). DC also inked a similar deal with Warner Bros. to produce films based on Darwyn Cooke's The New Frontier, an as-yet-untitled Superman/Doomsday film and Marv Wolfman's Teen Titans: The Judas Contract.
The direct-to-DVD animated movie market has grown dramatically in the past 12 years, when Disney released the wildly-successful Aladdin: Return of Jafar in 1994. Disney followed it up with controversial but lucrative direct-to-video features such as The Little Mermaid II, The Lion King II, and Lady & the Tramp II.
