A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

Cynopsis: Kids!

05/19/09

Good morning. It’s Tuesday, May 19, 2009, and this is your first early morning Kids briefing.

Let the screaming and swooning begin.  The stars of Summit Entertainment‘s Twilight movies, Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner, will present an exclusive scene from the new movie, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, at the 2009 MTV Movie Awards.  Hosted by Andy Samberg, the 2009 MTV Movie Awards will be air live from the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, California on Sunday, May 31 at 9p.  The show will air on MTV channels around the world in 161 countries. The 2009 MTV Movie Awards con subtitulos en Espanol will run on Saturday, June 13 at 5p, on MTV Tr3s.  The Twilight Saga: New Moon releases nationwide on November 20, 2009.

Here’s a new way for tweens/teens to spend (more of) Mom and Dad’s money online.  Socialwise, Inc. launches BillMyParents, a new online payment system that allows teens to buy things online and parents to later ok the purchase via an approval process.  After convincing their folks to sign up for the service, tweens/ teens can shop online either via BillMyParents enabled social networks, virtual worlds or online gaming sites. Once they pick what they want to buy (and maybe include a note to the folks), BillMyParents sends an email or text to their parent(s). Parents then review their selections and can approve or put the kibosh each request individually, or as a group, and then enter the credit card information.  BillMyParents has launched a shopping site powered by Amazon.com at www.bmpshopping.com, and also has set partnerships with a number of social networking sites including Artix Entertainment, Habbo, Outspark and RockYou!, among others.

NEW PRODUCTION & DEVELOPMENT

Nathanael Karmitz, head of MK2, and Aton Soumache President, Onyx Films, have unveiled plans to simultaneously produce a 3D animated feature film and corresponding video game based on Antoon Krings‘ Funny Little Bugs book series, per Variety.  The movie and game have a budget of $33 million, with the movie will be directed by Krings and is scheduled to being production in January 2010.  The movie and game will be produced by MKO, the videogame development company set up by Karmitz and Soumache, which will also package them for distribution.  The duo is in discussions with a partner to create a distribution structure.

Negotiations are underway for Peter Berg (Hancock, The Kingdom, Friday Night Lights) to direct an action-adventure movie version of Hasbro‘s Battleship game for Universal, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Already signed on to pen the script is the brother writing team of Jon and Erich Hoeber (Whiteout, Red).  Universal is already in various stages of development for movie adaptations of three other Hasbro properties, Monopoly, Candy Land and Ouija Board.

MORE KIDS STUFF

Aardman Rights expands its portfolio of third-party properties, inking a distribution rights deal for Hungary-based Studio Baestarts‘ series of new short films Log Jam. Studio Baestarts has already signed deals for the shorts with Nickelodeon for multiple territories and with Canal+ for France.  Under the new deal Aardman will manage the remaining rights to Log Jam for the rest of the world for TV, home entertainment, online, digital, mobile, in-flight and licensing.  Created by animator Alexei Alexeev (Mr. Bean, Baby Blues), as a sequel to the KJFG no. 5 short, the Log Jam shorts are produced by Andras Erkel, MD, Studio Baestarts and Peter Drake VP/Creative Director Nick UK.  The shorts are set in a forest and revolve around a bear, a wolf and a rabbit that love to make music with their homemade instruments.  The trio is interrupted only by a hunter who is out to get them, as are the other animals, which are luckily inept.

Muhuhahaha!  Cartoon Network Asia picks up Nerd Corp Entertainment‘s animated series League of Super Evil (a/k/a L.O.S.E.).  The series will launch in 2010 on Cartoon Network in 25+ countries, including India, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, China and several others in South East Asia.  Cartoon Network will handle all rights, including merchandising, for the 26×30 of the series. Additionally, Nerd Corps has created 30-second shorts tied to each episode for use as bonus on-air or online content of evil.  The League of Super Evil debuted in March on Cartoon Network US and YTV (Canada), as well as CBBC (UK), Jetix in Latin America and Canal +, Canal J and Gulli in France.

Moonscoop inks new TV sales for several animated series in Latin America and the Caribbean:  CBeebies in Latin America acquires the new 2D HD animated preschool series Chloe’s Closet, which is currently in production; Televideo (Bolivia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Paraguay) takes TV rights to Code Lyoko, Fantastic Four and the flash-animated series Growing Up Creepie; and CVM (Jamaica) picks up broadcast rights to Fantastic Four and Code Lyoko. 

ITV Global Entertainment inks a raft of 20+ new international home entertainment (DVD and Blu-ray) licenses for the digital film restoration of Michael Powell’s movie The Red Shoes, which premiered in Cannes this past Friday.  Among the new international home entertainment licenses are Atlantic Films AB (Scandinavia), Magna Pacific (Australia), Filmax (Spain) and ITV DVD (UK).  The Rank Library, owned by ITV Global Entertainment, originally released the Red Shoes in 1948.  The movie was restored in partnership with UCLA Film & Television Archive in association with The BFI, The Film Foundation, Janus Films and ITV Global Entertainment. Restoration funding was provided by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, The Film Foundation, and the Louis B. Mayer Foundation.

MARKETING/LICENSING

Sesame Workshop enters into a multi-year partnership with Yoostar, which will make some 160 classic and newer Sesame Street clips, featuring star Muppet characters (e.g. Elmo, Oscar the Grouch, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Bert and Ernie etc.), available over the course of the deal.  Fans can purchase and download the Sesame Street clips at Yoostar.com  beginning July 1, and at retail outlets from August 24.  The Yoostar system (retails for $169.95) includes the equipment and software to remove original actors from the scene and insert users in their place.

Classic Media enters into new consumer products partnerships for Little Golden Books and Pat the Bunny.

• Classic Media teams with toy manufacturer Yottoy Productions to create a line of plush toys based on the Little Golden Books series.  Launching this summer, the line debuts with three plush toys based on Little Golden Books characters The Poky Little Puppy, The Shy Little Kitty and Tawny Scrawny Lion.  Golden Books is an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., which in turn is owned by Bertelsmann AG.
• For the infant-aimed book Pat the Bunny, Classic Media partners with Kids Preferred to create a soft line based on the book.  Slated to launch this year, the line includes plush, puppets, photos frames and albums, mobiles, melamine feeding sets, diaper bags and bat toys.

Sprout partners with the Smart Television Alliance (STA) to serve as the exclusive preschool TV sponsor for the new Smart Summer initiative, which encourages parents to control their kid’s electronic media use over the summer.  With kid’s TV viewing increasing by 150% over the summer, per Nielsen ratings, the campaign will also offer parents tips, tools and other options for their kids during the summer months.  To support the effort, Sprout will feature a Smart Summer microsite at SproutOnline.com, offering activities, recipes, and a contest.  The STA is a coalition of more than a dozen national nonprofit organizations, including the Afterschool Alliance, Coalition for Quality Children’s Media: Kids First and Common Sense Media, National Education Association (NEA), Parent Teacher Association (PTA) among others, which aims to improve what our kids watch on TV and promote good educational and informational programming.

BBC Worldwide signs new publishing and home entertainment deals for its preschool series In the Night Garden in China.  Licensing agent U Young has been appointed to develop a licensing program across categories in China for In the Night Garden, with the first deals set to be available at retail this year.  The series premiered on Chinese Central Television (CCTV) earlier this month.

• BBC Magazine‘s In the Night Garden title will launch in China on June 1, 2009.  The magazine, licensed to You You Xing Media Co, a division of U Young Media, will be published in Chinese, with an initial printing of 150,000 copies, increasing to 500,000 with subsequent issues.
• BBC Children’s Books secures a deal with China’s Children’s Fun as the publisher for In the Night Garden.  Children’s Fun will launch eight Mandarin storybook titles, followed by activity books and other titles in 2010.
• Additionally, Excel Media, an existing BBC Worldwide partner, will release In the Night Garden DVDs in China, beginning with two titles this June, and two titles each month thereafter.

D3Publisher will release a new video game based on Cartoon Network‘s original action-adventure TV series The Secret Saturdays this fall.  Titled The Secret Saturdays: Beasts of the 5th Sun, the game will be available for Wii, PlayStation2, Nintendo DS, and PSP.  The Secret Saturdays: Beasts of the 5th Sun for Nintendo DS is being developed by 1st Playable Productions. All other versions are under development by High Voltage Software.  The ESRB rating for the game is currently pending.  The official site for the game is www.TheSecretSaturdaysVideogame.com.

RATINGS

Live + Same Day Ratings Kids Cable Network Averages (000) for Friday, May 15, 2009,6am-11pm, ranked by K2-11:
NICKELODEON:         K2-11 1129; K6-11 512; TWEENS 9-14 399
DISNEY CHANNEL:     K2-11   824; K6-11 478; TWEENS 9-14 373
CARTOON NETWORK: K2-11   427; K6-11 270; TWEENS 9-14 186
DISNEY XD:               K2-11   121; K6-11   86; TWEENS 9-14   81
Source: MTVN Research from Nielsen Media Research Data

 
Answer to Yesterday’s Trivia Question:    Who was the property owner (and title character) of the Flying Crown Ranch? SKY KING  Kudos to: John Lyons/Orlando, FL; Ellery J. Locklear-SCOLLON PRODUCTIONS, INC/ET; Barry Solomon-Menudo Entertainment LLC/New York; Andrea Blain-Andrea Blain Public Relations/Skokie; Pat Brady-CESD/Los Angeles; Georgia Scott-The Agency/PT

Today’s Trivia Question: Who are Burr Tillstrom and Fran Allison?   (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and time zone. Unofficial rules: Only the second four correct answers from each time zone will be mentioned; and once you’ve been mentioned in any of the Cynopsis editions, you can’t be mentioned again that calendar week.)

Later — Gwen
 Gwen Billings for Cynopsis Kids!
05.19.09

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