Fire Hydrants Painted As Cartoon Characters In Nanjing (Photo : Getty Images)
Win Animation hired foreign animation experts from Hollywood to prepare for its planned four movies a year. The rush to recruit Hollywood experts happened after Huayi Brothers, one of the leading studios in China, released “Monkey King: Hero is Back” which became the highest-grossing domestic animated film of all time.
Win, Huayi’s newly launched animation subsidiary, appointed Joe Aguilar as the company’s CEO and Markus Manninen as art director. Aguilar was a former executive of DreamWorks Animation, while Manninen handled visual effects of “Kung Fu Panda.”
With its top post filled, Win Animation targets to release four animated movies yearly. The first one, a sci-fi action film, is scheduled for exhibition in China in 2017, reported China Daily. The maiden venture would be supervised by Teng Huatao, the Chinese director of the recent hit “Kung Fu Panda 3.”
Huayi is filling Win with world-class animation experts as Chinese films aim for the global market, said Wang Zhonglei, president of Huayi. Aguilar added that the movies which Win would make would have global appeal.
Wang said that Win is concentrating on animated films because its target North American market attracts audience easily whatever is their age or culture. He said Win also wants to develop the animated films into long-running franchises.
In April 2015, Huayi inked an agreement with STX Entertainment in Hollywood to co-finance and distribute 18 movies, according to Hollywood Reporter.
Besides Huayi, other Chinese studios are also moving into animation. Enlighten Media established in October 2015 Coloroom Pictures which invested in 13 independent animation studious that would produce 22 films.
Besides executives, Huayi is also hiring screenwriters from Hollywood to develop stories for Chinese comedy films. The studio plans to produce two comedies, “Cell Phone 2” and “Marriage Lab,” according to Feng Xiaogang, the brains behind Huayi’s series of hit comedies. “Cell Phone 2” would be a sequel to his 2003 hit “Cell Phone.”
