Steve Oedekerk, the writer of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and The Nutty Professor and the writer/director of Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls and Patch Adams, is entering the international marketplace with his company O Entertainment.

O is offering a trio of high-concept comedies to buyers at AFM led by The Thumb Double Feature, featuring Oedekerk's celebrated Thumb characters sitting in the theatre watching two movies - Thumbtanic and Thumb Wars. Sales veteran Bonnie Foley will handle international sales.

"I was always curious why big mainstream comedies were never part of the independent scene," said Oedekerk. "It was always bad 'tits and ass' movies or action or arthouse stuff. Right now I have a few projects which I think are perfect as quality mainstream movies with an independent tag."

Domestic distribution is yet to be decided on The Thumb Double Feature or on the other two movies being talked up at AFM - The Barnyard and Billy The Destroyer, although Oedekerk's standing with studios could hardly be bettered. "I'm sitting tight on US distribution," he said. Billy The Destroyer is a fantasy about a boy who becomes a superhero, while The Barnyard is a CGI-animated movie [in the $10m-$15m range] imagining that when the farmer's not around, the animals on a farm stand up just like regular people.