Marvel’s $1.4 Billion Man
He’s not nearly as famous as the Incredible Hulk or his company’s other comic-book icons, but Ike Perlmutter appears to be getting a superhero’s share of the proceeds from Monday’s $4 billion sale of Marvel Entertainment
Mr. Perlmutter, who outmaneuvered the billionaire financiers Ronald O. Perelman and Carl C. Icahn to acquire Marvel out of bankruptcy more than a decade ago, will be receiving about $1.44 billion in cash and Disney stock as part of the deal, regulatory filings suggest.
As of May, Mr. Perlmutter, or funds he controls, held nearly 28.9 million shares of Marvel stock, or almost 37 percent of its outstanding shares.
With Disney valuing its cash-and-stock offer at $50 per Marvel share, that would value Mr. Perlmutter’s holdings at more than $1.4 billion. About 60 percent of the sale price is expected to be in cash, Disney said Monday.
Mr. Permlutter built his fortune buying a motley collection of surplus goods outlets, including Odd Lot Trading, and has also owned Remington Products, the electric razor company, and a stake in Coleco.
In early 1990, he bought the predecessor of a company called Toy Biz, known for marketing action figures, and brought in Avi Arad, a toy designer and superhero comics fan, to work with him.
Though a series of financial twists and turns, Toy Biz ended up acquiring Marvel out of bankruptcy in 1998. He became the company’s chief executive in early 2005.
Despite the considerable cash he’ll be receiving, Mr. Perlmutter apparently plans to keep his day job. Disney said Monday that after the deal, he will be staying on to oversee Marvel’s properties.
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/marvels-14-billion-man/?emc=eta1
Research and Markets: Asian Animation Industry: Strategies, Trends and Opportunities for the Multi-Billion Dollar Industry
DUBLIN--(Business Wire)-- Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/d72553/asian_animation_in) has announced the addition of the "Asian Animation Industry: Strategies, Trends and Opportunities" report to their offering. Much of Asia's animation production since the 1960s has been tied to foreign interests attracted by stable and inexpensive labour supplies. For nearly forty years, western studios have established and maintained production facilities, first in Japan, then in South Korea and Taiwan, and now also in the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Indonesia, and China. The economics of the industry made it feasible for Asia to feed the cartoon world, to the extent that today about 90% of all American television animation is produced in Asia. The usual procedure is for pre-production (preparing the script, storyboard, and exposure sheets) to be done in the United States or other headquarter countries, after which the package is sent to Asia for production (drawing cels, coloring by hand, inking, painting, and camera work). The work is sent back to the U.S. or other headquarter country for post-production (film editing, colour timing, and sound). Offshore animation has led to the creating and nurturing of a local industry, as an infrastructure is built up, equipment is put into place, and skills are transferred. An emerging trend in the Asian animation industry is the increasing focus towards production of local animation content for television as well as production of animated movies. An increasing number of Asian animation studios are giving importance to owning and protecting animation content by investing in intellectual property protection mechanisms. For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/d72553/asian_animation_in
Miyazaki still loves hand-drawn animation
LOS ANGELES – Computer animation may have taken control of the big-screen cartoon world, yet two of the world’s animation masters remain committed to the hand-drawn form.
Japan’s Hayao Miyazaki — whose 2002 fantasy “Spirited Away” won the Academy Award for feature animation over computer-generated front-runner “Ice Age” — has returned with his latest hand-crafted tale, “Ponyo.”
Miyazaki, whose films include “Princess Mononoke,” “Howl’s Moving Castle” and “My Neighbor Totoro,” has used computer animation to embellish hand-drawn images. But before “Ponyo” went into production, he shut down the computer-graphics department at his Studio Ghibli, opting to work solely in hand-drawn images.
Ice Age 3 Climbs Charts
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs continues its steady climbing of the box office charts since its release 4 weeks ago, most impressively so overseas. According to Box Office Mojo, the film has grossed $174 million domestically so far and $676 million worldwide. Those numbers make it the:
• #5 Highest grossing animated film worldwide
• #24 Highest grossing animated film domestically
• #33 Highest grossing film worldwide
Hayao Miyazaki’s latest feature Ponyo opened at number nine spot on the US box office chart with an estimated $3,506,000 during its opening weekend from 927 theaters. After its first weekend, Ponyo has already become the 8th highest grossing theatrical anime released in the United States, reports AnimeNewsNetwork. Ponyo, which follows the story of an ordinary boy and his friendship with a goldfish who wishes to be human, has been getting glowing reviews from the critics and has been rated 93% fresh at the RottenTomatoes Tomatometer with a critical consensus which says, “While not Miyazaki’s best film, Ponyo is a visually stunning fairy tale that’s a sweetly poetic treat for children of all ages.”
Oobermind cast shuffled
Variety reports that Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill have joined a cast led by Tina Fey to lend their voices for Dreamworks Animation’s upcoming feature Oobermind. Ferrell reportedly replaces Robert Downey Jr. in the title role of a supervillain in the animated comedy. Produced by Lara Breay and Denise Nolan Cascino and directed by Tom McGrath, Oobermind is set for a fall 2010 release.
Saldanha speaks Ice Age
Carlos Saldanha tells us all about directing Ice Age: Dawn of the Diaosaurs, Blue Sky’s new digs in Connectivy and his next project, Rio.
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Autodesk Introduces MotionBuilder 2010 Real-Time 3D Character Animation Software
Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) announced a new version of its real-time 3D character animation software — Autodesk MotionBuilder 2010. This latest release offers faster overall performance, productivity-enhancing animation workflows and expanded real-time physics capabilities. MotionBuilder has been used to create numerous entertainment projects, including “Beowulf,” “Gears of War 2,” “Shaun White Snowboarding” and “Resistance 2.”
MotionBuilder 2010 will also ship as a part of the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suites and the Autodesk Real-Time Animation Suites, leveraging the software’s improved interoperability with Autodesk Maya and Autodesk 3ds Max software and making it more affordable to incorporate the technology into digital entertainment workflows.
“I haven’t been this excited about a MotionBuilder release since I was first introduced to the software in 2003,” said CJ Markham, lead animator at Rockstar Games London. “The physics tools and solutions are amazing, and it feels much faster than the older versions. Compatibility with my 64-bit processor and the ability to use all 12 gigs of my RAM makes plotting long scenes with multiple characters a breeze.”
New Feature Highlights
Accelerated Performance
1. Improvements to and memory optimization of the core engine help provide superior performance when handling large scene files.
2 The nonlinear editing capabilities of the Story Tool are now faster than ever, enabling more rapid handling of data for cinematics and motion editing scenes.
Productivity-Geared Animation Workflows
2. Enhanced pose control support enables animators to capture poses and apply them to another object for rapid reuse of animations.
3. Support for user-defined keying groups enables animators to work more efficiently with custom rigs, props, cameras, and lights, as well as define their own methodology for setting keys.
4. The Actor tool has been exposed in Python scripting language, helping users save time by automating the setup and transfer of motion-capture data onto a character.
Expanded Physics and Character Simulation Capabilities
1. Joints can now be used to connect multiple simulated objects together for the purposes of a simulation. This means that users can hook props onto their character and have the secondary animation automatically solved by the physics engine.
2. A new pose-to-pose workflow gives animators the ability to guide or match their ragdoll simulations to user-defined poses.
Enhanced Interoperability
1. MotionBuilder 2010 has been integrated with the latest version of Autodesk HumanIK middleware. Also, the MotionBuilder pose controls, character controls and character definition list can now be used when working with the HumanIK plug-in.
2. The character templates in MotionBuilder have been updated, providing improved support for 3ds Max Biped.
3. Autodesk Softimage 2010 software now includes the MotionBuilder Template rig, facilitating character data exchange between applications.
4. Support for Qt user interface elements within MotionBuilder enables developers to use an industry-standard user interface toolkit to help build Open Reality software development kit (SDK) plug-ins.
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