Marza Animation Planet

Sony and SEGA to team up for a series of Sonic the Hedgehog movies, films to be animated by Marza Animation Planet

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The Hollywood Reporter has dropped a bombshell on Sonic fans by way of the announcement of a Sonic the Hedgehog movie! The film is reported to be a partnership between Sony Pictures Entertainment and SEGA, with animation handled by SEGA’s own Marza Animation Planet (of Night of the Werehog fame). The movie is described as “a hybrid CG-animated/live-action feature” is to be produced by Neal Moritz (22 Jump Street), Takeshi Ito and Mie Onishi of Marza, and executive produced by Toby Ascher with a screenplay written by Upright Citizens Brigade alums Evan Susser and Van Robichaux. Sonic and Eggman are the only confirmed characters thus far. Columbia Pictures president of production Hannah Minghella said “There are limitless stories to tell with a character like Sonic the Hedgehog and a built-in international fan base. Along with our wonderful creative partners at Marza, we’re looking to capture everything that generations of fans know and love about Sonic while also growing his audience wider than ever before.” Marza CEO Masanao Maeda added, “Sonic has had dozens of adventures on the console and the small screen, and we’re thrilled that he’s now coming to the big screen. Sony Pictures has had great success with hybrid animated and live-action features, and we’re confident that this collaboration will bring a fresh take to Sonic, while still capturing everything that the fans love about him.”

We’ll share more info as soon as we hear it!

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Marza Animation Planet’s “Harlock: Space Pirate” movie headed to Netflix August 1st

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IGN has revealed that “Harlock: Space Pirate”, an animated film from the SEGA owned Marza Animation Planet, will be releasing exclusively to Netflix in all territories beginning August 1st. The movie is a sci-fi action adventure based on the character from Leiji Matsumo’s Space Pirate Captain Harlock manga series. Marza Animation Planet is probably best known to SEGA fans as the group that animated the Sonic the Hedgehog “Night of the Werehog” short film, as well as animating cutscenes for SEGA games including Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA 2nd, Sonic Colors, and Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg.

We’ll keep you posted on any promotional materials that may release between then and now, and once the film releases I think a SEGA Cinema is in order!

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Marza Animation Planet’s next movie is called ‘Robodog’

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If you didn’t know, SEGA-Sammy own a CGI animated studio called Marza Animation Planet, who is co-producing the Captain Harlock movie.

The studio has now announced its new film which has begun pre-production and will be their first original film. They got Henry F. Anderson III (Gnomeo & Juliet) directing, Paul Wang (Astro Boy, TMNT) producing and Jeannette Manifold (Happy Feet, All Dogs Go to Heaven) as head of production. Its based on a script by Robert Reese.

Continue Reading ➜

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Want a New English Trailer for Marza’s Captain Harlock Movie? Well Here You Go

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UPDATE: So this trailer keeps being taken down from Youtube. If the video above gets taken down again you can watch it here on Dailymotion.

If you weren’t sure yet if the Captain Harlock movie Marza Animation Planet is working on is actually coming to the west, a new English trailer got leaked yesterday from the site of the company that does the marketing for the film in the west. This trailer shows two and a half minutes of footage, mostly with a very not-Japanese song being played over it. I have to say, it’s looking pretty dang good.

Toei also released a couple of other trailers earlier this year and released a small 30 second teaser earlier this week. Besides this, merch and also a localized version of the script has been leaked, so there may be spoilers on the internet. The Japanese release date is September 7th, dates for other countries aren’t known yet.

Harlock poster
Harlock screenshot
Harlock toys

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Marza Animation Planet trademarks “Luna’s Arc”

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Marza Animation Planet, a SEGA-Sammy owned CGI animation studio has trademarked the title ‘Luna’s Arc’.

This could be the title to their next film, which they chose the script from their online competition: Story Circus.  They have done the competition two years in a row and have picked up two full scripts to do an animated film on. Who knows, maybe next year us SEGAbit people will submit some scripts.

As for what this could be, who knows. Luna is Italian/Spanish for moon, which could me a space sort of film. What are your thoughts? Sound off in the comments.

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Sonic Generations Lost CG Intro – now with clean footage!

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Back in January of 2012, I shared a video I had put together which featured all the existing Sonic Generations CG footage. As many Sonic fans know, the game lacked a proper post-title screen CG intro, instead only offering up the same modern and classic Sonic footage seen in the initial teaser trailer for the game. By sifting through various trailers, commercials and promotional event videos I put together the most complete collection of CG Sonic Generations clips. Following the Marza Animation Planet story posted yesterday, I checked out the Marza website and discovered a cool thirty second clip featuring both Sonics running through City Escape and Rooftop Run. Unlike past videos, the clip was crisp and uncut, so I worked the improved footage into my old compilation video and present the revised version to you. Enjoy!

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Marza Animation Planet’s Space Pirate Captain Harlock gets a new trailer

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Marza Animation Planet (the guys that did the awesome Night of the Werehog) and Toei Animation have released a new trailer for their upcoming film Space Pirate Captain Harlock. The film is being directed by Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed and Halo Legends) and has a pretty low budget of 30 million dollars, regardless of budget the trailer looks impressive. Also Anime News Network states that this is Toei Animation movie, yet Marza Animation Planet is still listing it on their site. Odd?

The film is set to come out in the west this fall, debuted in Japan last week. Excited yet?

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Marza Animation Planet working with Hollywood writer for next feature

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Marza Animation Planet is the CGI animation studio owned by SEGA-Sammy. They are the team that did the awesome ‘Night of the Werehog‘ short and is now working on the Space Pirate Captain Harlock film.

If that wasn’t enough, it seems that the team is cooking up another project, this time with Marie Rose as a writer. She has worked on such films as Poseidon, LA Confidential and The Proposal. We shall see what comes out of this, should be interesting.

[Thanks: Liam via e-mail]
[Source: Mule Films page]

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