Stassen plans 3D wildlife doc in Africa

Pioneering 3-D filmmaker Ben Stassen is getting into the live-action business.

Stassen (whose Brussels-based company NWave earlier this year signed a development, co-financing and distribution deal with StudioCanal) is planning a big budget 3D wildlife doc to shoot across Africa.

The project, African Safari 3D (working title), is due to start shooting in November this year. It has an estaimted budget level of $25 million to $30 million.

The film will look at ongoing attempts by animal conservationists to re-establish animal migration over vast regions. It will shoot everywhere from Namibia to Kenya.

NWave is currently putting the finishing touches to Sammy’s Adventures - The Secret Passage (aka Around The World In 50 Years), its $20 million animated coming-of-age feature about a sea turtle from hatching to maturity. The company is already preparing a $25 million sequel, tentatively called Sammy and Ray. This is billed as an “action comedy” in which the turtles end up in captivity in a huge underwater aquarium in the Middle East. It is being made in collaboration with StudioCanal with Belgian tax shelter financing from the uMedia Group.

“StudioCanal will be our financing partner as well as our distributor in some markets like France, Germany, UK and Benelux, and our worldwide (sales) agent,” Stassen commented of the Sammy sequel.

Meanwhile, as NWave ramps up, another ambitious new animated feature, Enchaunted House, is also in the works and due to go into production in 2011. This is about a house owned by an elderly magician. When the magician’s nephew tries to have him put in an old people’s home and sell the house, the house comes to life to kerp the real estate agents at bay.