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Astroboy Halted until Imagi Gets More Money
Astroboy has gone from classic animation to kitchy fashion icon accessory and now thanks to Imagi Animation, he will be returning to media in the form of a feature film.
I have been anticipating this nostalgic piece of my younger days for a while now, hoping to see a teaser trailer, or stills or something. But it seems that someone forgot to pay the staff, so they had to lay off a bunch of people until the cheques clear. Its coming, but right now they can’t pay their staff, so they are getting an involuntary holiday.
So the financially squeezed Hong Kong-based studio responsible for TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) realized Friday night that it couldn’t make its Los Angeles payroll, called everyone on Saturday and laid off almost 80 union animators out of the 120 staff in the LA office, and halted production on the upcoming CGI-animated feature film Astro Boy for Summit Entertainment. Behind the scenes, the company is privately assuring Summit that this won’t affect the pic’s release this year.
So…. why did you have those animators on the job to begin with if laying them off for a couple months would not affect your release date?
Perhaps they had a few months of room before the deadline that this layoff will eat up?
I hope nothing else goes wrong. I really want to see more about this film, but if they are not working on it, it will be a while before we have news!
Most of the film’s probably done already. They just need to bring in fewer non-union guys who actually get work done and don’t spend all day playing Quake.
Yes, cause you know for a fact that that is EXACTLY what they do…
What do you mean…you “have yet to see the teaser trailer”? Wasn’t there one on Quicktime Apple?
As for “not affecting the release date”-? The only thing I could think of at the moment is that, with laying off the animators, most of this has to do with:
a) post, and thus the animators aren’t needed that much anymore [note: this still stinks]
Or
b) Getting rid of the LA guys in favor of…folks who happen to live outside of the States, such as…oh, let me guess… Japan?
Not Japan but Hong Kong, where I believe Imagi does the majority of its animating.
They already announced that they have received the funding needed and will be back to work on Monday.
i was one of the- okay..everyone said it was going to suck..including me
but i kinda liked that trailer
Rodney, there is a trailer up on Apple Trailers.
yeah he might know, i saw the trailer for the 1st time HERE…maybe it was even rodney that posted it…. i liked it lol it was pretty good
MBUncut, its a teaser. And yeah, I posted it here.
http://themovieblog.com/2008/11/astroboy-teaser-online
@Slushie Man
Well, not EXACTLY. Sometimes it’s “Command & Conquer” or in my office’s case, “Urban Terror.” :P
I “laying people off” is just becoming a way to spin things when companies making bad business decisions. Management Fs everything up, keeps their jobs and “staff” gets the axe.
It’s total bullshit.
hey and nic cage is in this movie too….i forgot about that…..
I cannot wait for this film i think it will be superb!!
Why they make astroboy look like a pixar character? I don´t like at all those eyes!!!! Astroboy is a japanese character why don´t leave his face as it is? hate when hollywood does things like that! Remember Godzilla please!
Dude, this toon looks EXACTLY like the Astroboy cartoon. He is just 3d rendered. That’s all.
As Japanese as the character was, Astroboy was a robot and didnt look Asian at all with those big round eyes.