Fantawild Animation, the Chinese studio behind the hit Boonie Bears franchise, has expanded its sales division to represent titles from outside the company and arrives at the American Film Market (AFM) with a slate of films and series.
The Shenzhen-based studio has previously handled sales of its own titles, which includes the 10 animated features in the Boonie Bears series, which have collectively taken more than $875m at the box office worldwide.
Now, in a bid to further grow its business, Fantawild has secured sales rights to 10 titles – a mix of animated features and series – that it will introduce to buyers at the AFM. They include Chinese animated features Backkom Bear: Mars Mission, Super Wings The Movie: Maximum Speed, Mini World: Powers Awaken and Master Kid as well as TV series Pipilu Rangers and Shuke & Beita.
The sales unit will be led by Fantawild Animation president Daisy Shang, while daily operations will be handled by senior director of international Allen Lo and head of international Daniel Bort.
“Following the success of our own work, which has taken us into markets around the world, it made sense for us to expand our business, pick up other quality animation properties and find them the right homes,” said Bort, who is attending AFM with the fresh slate this week.
The sales executive added that Fantawild would focus on picking up six to 10 animated titles per year, aimed at family audiences, and would also consider looking outside of China for properties to represent.
Further markets attended by the company include Berlin’s EFM, the Cannes Marche and Hong Kong Filmart, as well as MipTV, Mipcom and ATF in Singapore. It has also been present at the recent Asian Contents & Film Market in Busan, TIFFCOM, Kidscreen and the upcoming Dubai International Content Market.
At AFM, the studio is in talks with buyers on Boonie Bears: Time Twist, the 10th instalment in the animation franchise, which is directed by Huida Lin and is set for a local release on February 7 to coincide with Chinese New Year. it follows Boonie Bears: Guardian Code, which took more than $222m at the Chinese box office following its release earlier this year.
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