Animation veteran Fred Seibert is launching Frederator Films, a new US company that plans to make 2D animated genre features with budgets below $20m. Among the company's first projects is a big screen version of Cartoon Network hit Samurai Jack.
Seibert, a one-time president of Hanna-Barbera and creative director of MTV, currently heads TV animation company Frederator Studios (The Fairly Odd Parents). He is partnered in the new venture by producer Kevin Kolde and Eric Gardner, chairman of talent management and production company Panacea Entertainment.
Frederator Films plans to make two features a year, with production based in Hollywood and New York. Work on the company's first project, hip-hop-themed The Seven Deadly Sins, from flash animator Dan Meth, is set to start in the autumn. Boxing promoter Don King is attached as a voice actor.
The Samurai Jack feature has Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of the Emmy-winning series that ran from 2001 to 2004, attached to write and direct.
Also in the works is The Neverhood, based on the 1996 claymation computer game created by Doug TenNapel and released by Dreamworks. TenNapel has signed on to write and direct the feature version.
'Our studio's successes have been built on the best creative talents in the animation business,' said Seibert. 'Genndy Tartakovsky, Doug TenNapel, and Dan Meth are continuing a tradition of original cartoons we began in 1998 and moving it into feature films.'
Gardner added: 'Fred is the master at identifying voids in the marketplace and filling them with paradigm-shifting content. There has been a dearth of both 2D and genre animated feature product which Frederator Films will be rectifying, much to the delight of young males everywhere.'
Seibert, a one-time president of Hanna-Barbera and creative director of MTV, currently heads TV animation company Frederator Studios (The Fairly Odd Parents). He is partnered in the new venture by producer Kevin Kolde and Eric Gardner, chairman of talent management and production company Panacea Entertainment.
Frederator Films plans to make two features a year, with production based in Hollywood and New York. Work on the company's first project, hip-hop-themed The Seven Deadly Sins, from flash animator Dan Meth, is set to start in the autumn. Boxing promoter Don King is attached as a voice actor.
The Samurai Jack feature has Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of the Emmy-winning series that ran from 2001 to 2004, attached to write and direct.
Also in the works is The Neverhood, based on the 1996 claymation computer game created by Doug TenNapel and released by Dreamworks. TenNapel has signed on to write and direct the feature version.
'Our studio's successes have been built on the best creative talents in the animation business,' said Seibert. 'Genndy Tartakovsky, Doug TenNapel, and Dan Meth are continuing a tradition of original cartoons we began in 1998 and moving it into feature films.'
Gardner added: 'Fred is the master at identifying voids in the marketplace and filling them with paradigm-shifting content. There has been a dearth of both 2D and genre animated feature product which Frederator Films will be rectifying, much to the delight of young males everywhere.'
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