Hong Kong’s animation studio Imagi International and its strategic partner Guangdong Creative Power Entertaining (CPE) have reached a distribution deal with The Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture to distribute the fourth movie of popular Chinese animation series Pleasant Goat and Big Bad Wolf.

The new film, currently in production, is budgeted at $2m and is scheduled to be released in spring 2012. Disney will distribute the film theatrically worldwide except for mainland China and Hong Kong.

Disney is also licensed to distribute the film in other media platforms such as TV, internet and mobile in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, according to Twiggy Cheung, COO of Toon Express, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Imagi.

The fourth Pleasant Goat film will incorporate a new character Xiao Long (Little Dragon), which is a character from locally-produced TV animation series Kung Fu Dragon, produced by Shanghai ToonCool Digital. Disney is currently the master licensee for Xiao Long’s consumer products.

Toon Express also announced that it has entered into an income sharing agreement with Disney for the next three years from October 2011. In addition to the box office revenue, advertising income and consumer products licensing income from the core characters of the fourth Pleasant Goat film, the income sharing agreement with Disney will generate revenue attributable to Imagi across the period of three years from sales of licensed merchandise featuring Xiao Long.

The Pleasant Goat and Big Bad Wolf film series has been produced by CPE with Toon Express managing branding and merchandise of the series. The series generated more than $54.1m (RMB350m) solely in theatrical revenue.

Imagi acquired Toon Express in February 2011.

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